ANOTHER APPLICATION

Shockley diodes are mostly used as a switch in many circuits to turn on an SCR.
The circuit diagram of the Shockley diode is shown below. The circuit below uses a
Shockley diode to turn on the SCR, then it turns in the buzzer until the power is
disconnected.

Shockley Diode Circuit Diagram

The first part of the circuit is RC circuit,

where the RC network is fed DC voltage.
Here, the capacitor will charge up
through the resistor. When the DC power
is detached from the circuit, the capacitor
will discharge through the diode. This
discharge will be the trigger voltage of the
Shockley diode and it will turn the diode
on. Once the diode is switched ON, the
SCR will be turned ON and generates an
alarm.

The negative terminal of the diode must

be connected to the gate terminal of the SCR. Once the gate terminal of the SCR
receives the ample voltage, it will conduct the current from anode to cathode until the
power is detached. Detaching the gate current at this point has no effect and the current
will still conduct from positive to negative. For this reason SCRs are very good for
switching of devices like alarm circuits which continue ON until the power is deactivated.
And another reason is, the switch is placed in the positive terminal of the SCR.
Whenever you want to disable the buzzer, you should detach the power from the
positive terminal the SCR. To do this, we kept a normally closed switch (SMPS) on this
anode terminal.

APPLICATIONS OF SCR
SCR as a Switch
The switching operation is one of the most important applications of the SCR. The SCR
is often used as solid state relay and has more advantages than electromagnetic relays
or switches as there are no moving parts in SCR. The below figure shows the
application of an SCR as a switch to ON and OFF the power supplied to the load. The
AC power supplied to the load is controlled by applying alternate triggering pulses to the
SCR. The resistors R1 and R2 protect the diodes D1 and D2 respectively. The resistor
R limits the gate current flow.

During the positive half cycle of the input, SCR1 is forward biased and SCR2 is reverse
biased. If the switch S is closed, gate current is applied to the SCR1 through diode D1
and hence SCR1 is turned ON. Therefore, the current flows to the load through SCR1.
Similarly, during the negative half cycle of the signal, SCR2 is forward biased and SCR1
is reverse biased. If the switch S is closed, gate current flows to the SCR2 through
diode D2. Hence the SCR2 is turned ON and the load current flows through it.

Therefore, by controlling the switch S the load current can be controlled at any desired
position. It is observed that, this switch handles a few mill ampere current to control the
several hundred ampere current in the load. So this method of switching is more
advantageous than mechanical or electromechanical switching.

Half Wave Rectifier

The circuit below shows the single phase half wave rectifier circuit using SCR. A diode
in series with the variable resistor is connected to the gate which is responsible to
trigger the SCR.

 During the negative half cycle of the AC input signal, the SCR is reverse biased. Hence,
no current flows through the load.
 During the negative half cycle of the input, SCR is forward biased. If the resistor is varied
such that the minimum triggering current is applied to the gate, then the SCR is turned
ON. Hence the current starts flowing to the load.
 If the gate current is higher, the supply voltage at which the SCR is turned ON will be
lesser. The angle at which the SCR starts conducting is referred as firing angle. For this
rectifier circuit, firing angle can be varied during the positive half cycle only.
 Therefore, by varying the firing angle or gate current (by changing the resistance in this
circuit), it is possible to make the SCR conduct part or full positive half cycle so that the
average power fed to the load get varied.
Full Wave Rectifier
In a full wave rectifier, both positive and negative wave of the input supply are rectified.
Hence, compared to the half wave rectifier, the average value of the DC voltage is high
and also ripple content is less. The below figure shows the full wave rectifier circuit
consisting of two SCRs connected with centre tapped transformer.

• During the positive half cycle of the input, SCR1 is forward biased and SCR2 is
reverse biased. By applying the proper gate signal, SCR1 is turned ON and hence load
current starts flowing through it.

• During the negative half cycle of the input, SCR2 is forward biased and SCR1 is
reverse biased. With a gate triggering, SCR2 is turned ON and hence the load current
flows through the SCR2.

• Therefore, by varying the triggering current to the SCRs, the average power delivered
to the load is varied.

Full Wave Bridge Rectifier

Instead of using a centre tapped transformer, it is also possible to use four SCRs in a
bridge configuration to get the full wave rectification. During the positive half cycle of the
input, SCR1 and SCR2 are in conduction. During the negative half cycle, SCR3 and
SCR4 are in conduction. The conduction angle of each thyristor is adjusted by varying
the respective gate currents. And hence, the output voltage across the load is varied.
Over voltage Protection using SCR
Due to the fast switching action of the SCR, it can be employed as a protecting device.
The circuit used for the protection against over voltages is referred as Crowbar circuit.
The figure below shows the crowbar circuit using SCR. This crowbar circuit is
connected across the circuit or load which is to be protected. This circuit consists of
SCR which is triggered by zener diode arrangement. This zener diode is selected in
such a way that under normal operating condition, it acts as an open switch. So the
voltage across the resistor is zero and hence the SCR remains in OFF state.

Whenever the voltage of the supply source exceeds the specified limits, zener diodes
starts conducting and a sufficient voltage appears across the resistor. This drives the
SCR into conduction mode. The voltage drop across the SCR is reduced as it is in
conduction mode and thus load is protected from the over voltage.

DIAC APPLICATIONS

Light Dimmer Circuit

The figure below shows the light dimmer circuit. By using this, power fed to the lamp is
controlled smoothly. The variable gate voltage is produced by RC arrangement at the
gate terminal of triac. When the device is switched OFF, the rate of rise of voltage is
limited by the series R4-C1 network across the triac.

As the input voltage is applied to the circuit, c1 and c2 starts charging at a rate
determined by the resistance R2. Whenever the voltage across the capacitor c3
exceeds the breakover voltage of the diac, diac triggered and starts conducting. Then,
the capacitor C3 starts discharging through the conducting diac into the gate of the triac.
Therefore, the triac is turned ON and passes the current to the lamp. By varying the
resistance R2, rate of charge in the capacitor is varied and hence the voltage at which
the triac is triggered in both positive and negative half cycles of the input is controlled.

In above figure both supply and load voltages are shown. The firing angle of the triac
can be varied up to the 180 degrees. And hence load voltage is controlled from zero
value to full RMS value.
Heater Control Circuit
The figure below shows the usage of diac as a trigger device to provide a smooth
control of heat produced by the heater. This circuit operation is also similar to the above
circuit. The LC combination across the triac reduces the rate of rise of voltage during
the turn OFF of the triac. The positive and negative half cycle of the input voltage to the
heater is controlled by adjusting the resistance R2. For all variable positions of R2 , a
smooth control ensued by placing resistance R4 across the diac.

APPLICATIONS OF TRIAC

High Power Lamp Switching.

Use of the triac as an ac on/off switch is shown in figure. When the switch S is
in position 1, the triac is cut-off and so the lamp-is’dark. When the switch is
put in position 2, a small gate current flowing through the gate turns the triac
on and so the lamp is switched on to give rated output.

Triac Switching Circuit

The circuit above shows a simple DC triggered triac power switching circuit. With
switch SW1 open, no current flows into the Gate of the triac and the lamp is therefore “OFF”.
When SW1 is closed, Gate current is applied to the triac from the battery supply VG via
resistor R and the triac is driven into full conduction acting like a closed switch and full power is
drawn by the lamp from the sinusoidal supply.
As the battery supplies a positive Gate current to the triac whenever switch SW1 is closed, the
triac is therefore continually gated in modes Ι+ and ΙΙΙ+ regardless of the polarity of
terminal MT2.
Of course, the problem with this simple triac switching circuit is that we would require an
additional positive or negative Gate supply to trigger the triac into conduction. But we can also
trigger the triac using the actual AC supply voltage itself as the gate triggering voltage. Consider
the circuit below

Triac Switching Circuit

The circuit shows a triac used as a simple static AC power switch providing an “ON”-“OFF”
function similar in operation to the previous DC circuit. When switch SW1is open, the triac acts
as an open switch and the lamp passes zero current. When SW1 is closed the triac is gated “ON”
via current limiting resistor R and self-latches shortly after the start of each half-cycle, thus
switching full power to the lamp load.
As the supply is sinusoidal AC, the triac automatically unlatches at the end of each AC half-
cycle as the instantaneous supply voltage and thus the load current briefly falls to zero but re-
latches again using the opposite thyristor half on the next half cycle as long as the switch remains
closed. This type of switching control is generally called full-wave control due to the fact that
both halves of the sine wave are being controlled.
As the triac is effectively two back-to-back connected SCR’s, we can take this triac switching
circuit further by modifying how the gate is triggered as shown below.

Modified Triac Switching Circuit

As above, if switch SW1 is open at position A, there is no gate current and the lamp is “OFF”. If
the switch is moved to position B gate current flows at every half cycle the same as before and
full power is drawn by the lamp as the triac operates in modes Ι+and ΙΙΙ–.
However this time when the switch is connected to position C, the diode will prevent the
triggering of the gate when MT2 is negative as the diode is reverse biased. Thus the triac only
conducts on the positive half-cycles operating in mode I+ only and the lamp will light at half
power. Then depending upon the position of the switch the load is Off, at Half Power or Fully
ON.

AC Power Control.
A triac control circuit is shown in figure. Here it is controlling ac power to load
by switching on and off during the positive and negative half cycles of the
input sinusoidal signal.

During the positive half cycle of the input voltage, diode D1 is forward biased,
D2 is reverse-biased, and the gate terminal is positive with respect to
A1 During the negative half cycle, the diode D2 is forward biased and diode
D1 is reverse-biased, so that the gate becomes positive with respect to
terminal A2– The point of commencement of conduction is controlled by
adjusting the resistance R2.
APPLICATIONS OF UJT

Unijunction Transistor Relaxation Oscillator

When a voltage (Vs) is firstly applied, the unijunction transistor is “OFF” and the capacitor C1 is
fully discharged but begins to charge up exponentially through resistor R3. As the Emitter of the
UJT is connected to the capacitor, when the charging voltage Vc across the capacitor becomes
greater than the diode volt drop value, the p-n junction behaves as a normal diode and becomes
forward biased triggering the UJT into conduction. The unijunction transistor is “ON”. At this
point the Emitter to B1 impedance collapses as the Emitter goes into a low impedance saturated
state with the flow of Emitter current through R1 taking place.
As the ohmic value of resistor R1 is very low, the capacitor discharges rapidly through the UJT
and a fast rising voltage pulse appears across R1. Also, because the capacitor discharges more
quickly through the UJT than it does charging up through resistor R3, the discharging time is a
lot less than the charging time as the capacitor discharges through the low resistance UJT.
When the voltage across the capacitor decreases below the holding point of the p-n junction
( VOFF ), the UJT turns “OFF” and no current flows into the Emitter junction so once again the
capacitor charges up through resistor R3 and this charging and discharging process
between VON and VOFF is constantly repeated while there is a supply voltage, Vs applied.

UJT Oscillator Waveforms

Then we can see that the unijunction oscillator continually switches “ON” and “OFF” without
any feedback. The frequency of operation of the oscillator is directly affected by the value of the
charging resistance R3, in series with the capacitor C1 and the value of η. The output pulse shape
generated from the Base1 (B1) terminal is that of a sawtooth waveform and to regulate the time
period, you only have to change the ohmic value of resistance, R3 since it sets the RC time
constant for charging the capacitor.
The time period, T of the sawtoothed waveform will be given as the charging time plus the
discharging time of the capacitor. As the discharge time, τ1 is generally very short in comparison
to the larger RC charging time, τ2 the time period of oscillation is more or less equivalent
to T ≅ τ2. The frequency of oscillation is therefore given by ƒ = 1/T
APPLICATIONS OF PUT
PUT relaxation oscillator.
Relaxation oscillator is of course the most common application of a
programmable UJT. PUT relaxation oscillator can be used for generating a
wide range of saw tooth wave forms. It is called a relaxation oscillator
because the timing interval is started by the gradual charging of a capacitor
and the timing interval is terminated by the sudden discharge of the same
capacitor. The circuit diagram of a PUT relaxation oscillator is shown below.

Resistors R1 and R2 set the peak

voltage (Vp) and intrinsic standoff ratio (η) of the PUT. Resistor Rk limits
cathode current of the PUT. Resistor R and capacitor C sets the frequency of
the oscillator. When the supply voltage Vbb is applied, the capacitor C starts
charging through resistor R. When the voltage across the capacitor exceeds
the peak voltage (Vp) the PUT goes into negative resistance mode and this
creates a low resistance path from anode(A) to cathode(K). The capacitor
discharges through this path. When the voltage across the capacitor is below
valley point voltage (Vv) the PUT reverts to its initial condition and there will
be no more discharge path for the capacitor. The capacitor starts to charge
again and the cycle is repeated. This series of charging and discharging
results in a sawtooth waveform across the capacitor as shown in the figure
below.

The frequency of oscillation of a

PUT relaxation oscillator can be expressed by the following equation:

F = 1/ (RC ln(1/(1-η)).Where F is the frequency, η is the intrinsic standoff ratio, R

is the resistance and C is the capacitance.
SHOCKLEY DIODE

SILICON CONTROLLED RECTIFIER (SCR)

SILICON CONTROLLED SWITCH (SCS)

DIAC