How do the atoms in a diode get back after reverse bias is removed?

How do the atoms in a diode get back to their original positions after the reverse bias is removed???

Re: reverse bias removal

They did not really move (much) in the first place.

Re: reverse bias removal

When bias is applied only electrons move under effect of electric field. Atom have fixed position in crystal lattice and doesn't move.
P-N Junction Diode and Characteristics

Re: reverse bias removal

yadavvlsi said:

When bias is applied only electrons move under effect of electric field. Atom have fixed position in crystal lattice and doesn't move.
P-N Junction Diode and Characteristics

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot....had this doubt for a long time...

Re: reverse bias removal

aravindsridhar92 said:

How do the atoms in a diode get back to their original positions after the reverse bias is removed???

Click to expand...

When you reverse bias the diode then due to reverse potential electron and protons moves in opposite direction i.e. away from each other hence increase in potential barrier. When you remove the biasing the they come back due to there own electrical field i.e. attraction between hole and electron resulting in reduce size of potential barrier. but there is a limit of attraction and it can't penetrate the potential barrier and needs external biasing to brake that barriers which ideally is 0.7v for silicon and 0.3v for germanium diodes.When this voltage is applied then electron starts jumping from the n junction into the holes which are in p junction and again when you remove the biasing this jumping stops and diode comes back to its normal position.

The time taken by this comeback of potential barrier from thick(when the diode was reversed biased) to thin barrier(when diode gets forward bias) is called reverse recovery time.