Do you want to know more about Germanium diode? Kindly see below for your reference.
There are lots of kinds of diodes today. But one of these that are very ideal to use in any circuitry is the Germanium diode. Germanium diode is a semiconductor component that has two terminals in it which are called anode and cathode. Basically, the flow of current can be observed only in one direction since it blocks the flow of current from the opposite side. The flow of current can be observed going in to the anode and then this particular current goes out from the other terminal which is the cathode.
One of the characteristics of the Germanium diode is that it operates from a particular temperature range which is from -78 degrees Celsius to 100 degrees Celsius. Another ideal characteristic of this particular diode is that it has a low voltage drop as compared to other types like the silicon diode. Its voltage drop is about 0.3 volt only. This characteristic is very evident particularly to 1N34A Germanium diode.
Many manufacturers nowadays produce silicon diode because of its stability and ease of use. However, it has a disadvantage when it comes to its application to a certain circuit. The voltage drop of a silicon diode is about 0.7 volt. This is much higher to Germanium diode as mentioned previously which has a voltage drop of only 0.3 volt. To better understand what this voltage drop means, let us take a good example below.
Let us say we are charging a particular battery through a silicon diode with 20 volts from the voltage source. During the charging process, the current will flow from the source to the diode then to the battery. After the charging process, only 19.3 volts will be seen by the battery. As we can see, a reduction in voltage of 0.7 volt is observed after the charging process which is the voltage drop of the silicon diode. This missing 0.7 volt is lost as heat. Basically, this is the main reason why a Germanium diode is more efficient than a silicon diode since it has a lower forward voltage drop as compared to the latter.
Germanium diodes are widely used today in detecting the rectifying efficiency and even in switching on a particular TV, stereo, or even a radio. We can also see the applications of this particular diode in most wind turbines, low level logic circuits, and solar panels.
