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Theory and experiment on charging and discharging a capacitor through a

reverse-biased diode

Article  in  American Journal of Physics · February 2018

DOI: 10.1119/1.5026994

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Theory and experiment on charging and discharging a capacitor
through a reverse-biased diode
Arijit Roy,a) Abhishek Mallick, Aparna Adhikari, Priyanka Guin, and Dibyendu Chatterjee
Department of Electronics, West Bengal State University, Barasat, Kolkata 700126, India
(Received 21 November 2017; accepted 26 February 2018)
The beauty of a diode lies in its voltage-dependent nonlinear resistance. The voltage on a charging
and discharging capacitor through a reverse-biased diode is calculated from basic equations and is
found to be in good agreement with experimental measurements. Instead of the exponential
dependence of charging and discharging voltages with time for a resistor-capacitor circuit, a linear
time dependence is found when the resistor is replaced by a reverse-biased diode. Thus, well
controlled positive and negative ramp voltages are obtained from the charging and discharging
diode-capacitor circuits. This experiment can readily be performed in an introductory physics and
electronics laboratory. VC 2018 American Association of Physics Teachers.
https://doi.org/10.1119/1.5026994

I. INTRODUCTION circuits, ramp generation and so on. Among these applica-

A diode is one of the most basic and important compo-
nents in electronics. A diode is a unilateral element as it
behaves differently under forward and reverse-biased condi-
tions. The behaviour of a diode is not straightforward (espe-
cially for small signals) due to the inherent nonlinearity in
the current–voltage (I–V) characteristics.1–3 Because of this,
the Thevenin and the Norton circuit theorems cannot be
applied to circuits containing diodes. But circuits containing
diodes and capacitors are extensively used in electronics.
This paper describes an analytical and experimental estima-
tion of the charging and the discharging behaviour of a
capacitor for the case when charging and discharging are
allowed through a reverse-biased diode. This behaviour is
different than that of the charging and discharging of a
capacitor in a traditional RC circuit.4 The usual definition of
the time constant is not valid in this context due to the non-
exponential nature of the current during the charging and dis-
charging process.5 Such a case is presented for the charging
and discharging of a capacitor through a lamp. The resis-
tance of the lamp is shown to be time-dependent, leading to
nonexponential behaviour of the current.5
Diode-capacitor circuits are fundamental in electronics,
and there exists an inherent academic interest in the charging
and discharging of a capacitor through a diode. The decaying
voltage of a capacitor through a resistor in a resistor-
capacitor circuit varies exponentially with time while the
same is found to be a logarithmic decay for discharge of a
capacitor through a forward-biased diode.6 This paper uses
the well-known Shockley diode equation to predict and ver-
ify the charging and discharging voltages on a capacitor
when charging or discharging is allowed through a reverse-
biased diode. To the best of our knowledge, only the dis-
charge of a capacitor through a forward-biased diode has
been examined and verified6 as far as diode-capacitor cir-
cuits are concerned. On the other hand, the objective of this
work is the estimation of charging and discharging voltages
on a capacitor through a reverse-biased diode only. The
knowledge of a direct current (DC) reverse-biased diode-
capacitor circuit is useful to build a constant current source
for small signal applications and to estimate the output resis-
tance of rectifier circuits. Practical applications of our pro-
posed circuits include wave-shaping circuits, triggering
tions, positive and negative ramp generations are described
in this paper.
The proposed experiment is well suited for an undergradu-
ate course in physics and electronics. The experiment and
circuits are presented with all relevant information. The elec-
tronic components are common, inexpensive and readily
available. A simple experiment for students at the undergrad-
uate level is presented.
II. THEORY
Unlike an ordinary resistor, a diode behaves like a
voltage-dependent resistor that is highly nonlinear. As a
result, a diode offers unequal resistance to a capacitor during
charging (or discharging). Furthermore, the nature of the
non-linearity in the resistance of a diode in forward or
reverse-biased conditions is quite different. In general, the
forward-biased diode offers less resistance in comparison to
the reverse-biased condition. Hence, charging and discharg-
ing both are faster through a forward-biased diode in com-
parison to that of a reverse-biased diode.
Theoretically, the rate of the flow of charge is just the cur-
rent in a circuit. This current is equal to the rate of change of
the capacitor voltage, VC, multiplied by the value of the
capacitance of that capacitor, C. On the other hand, this cur-
rent is the current through the diode and is commonly
expressed by the Shockley diode equation. Thus, the charging
current, Id, through a forward-biased diode is expressed by
dVC
Id ¼ Is ð eVd =gVT  1Þ ¼ C ; (1)
dt
where Is is the magnitude of the reverse saturation current of
the diode, Vd is the voltage across the diode, VT is the ther-
mal voltage, and g is the ideality factor ð1  g  2Þ. For
simplicity, gVT ¼ VT is considered in the rest of this paper.
A. Case I: Charging a capacitor through a reverse-biased
diode
In a diode-capacitor circuit, charging of the capacitor is
considered through a reverse-biased diode using a constant
voltage source, VS. In this case, the voltage across the diode

417 Am. J. Phys. 86 (6), June 2018 http://aapt.org/ajp C 2018 American Association of Physics Teachers
V 417
is equal to the voltage difference between the supply voltage
and the capacitor voltage

Vd ¼ VS  VC : (2)

Therefore, the equation describing the charging voltage is

obtained by substituting the diode voltage given in Eq. (2)
into Eq. (1), and it is
dVC
C ¼ Is ½ eðVS VC Þ=VT  1 : (3)
dt
Here, Eq. (3) is a differential equation, and this equation is to
be solved with the initial condition of an uncharged capaci-
tor—i.e., VC ¼ 0 at t ¼ 0. In contrast to Eq. (1), two negative
signs appear in Eq. (3) on the right-hand side. The negative
sign in the exponential term is due to the imposition of the
reverse-biased condition of the diode, while the other nega-
tive sign accounts for the direction of current flow. Although
the diode is in the reverse-biased condition, the direction of
current flow is considered to be from the positive terminal of
the supply voltage to the capacitor through the diode.
The capacitor charging voltage described in Eq. (3) can be
solved analytically, with solution
h i
VC ðtÞ ¼ VS  VT ln 1  ð 1  eVS =VT Þ eat ; (4)

where a  Is =ðCVT Þ.

B. Case II: Discharging a capacitor through

a reverse-biased diode
In this case, a charged capacitor (initially charged to volt-
age Vi) is allowed to discharge through a reverse-biased
diode and the decaying voltage of the capacitor is the term of
interest and is expressed by
dVC
C ¼ Is ½ eVC =VT  1 : (5)
dt
The analytical solution of Eq. (5) is
h i
VC ðtÞ ¼ VT ln 1  ð 1  eVi =VT Þ eat : (6)
III. EXPERIMENT
A very simple experimental setup is used to obtain the
charging and discharging voltage on a capacitor through a
reverse-biased diode. In order to obtain the charging and dis-
charging responses, a square-wave (0 – 5) V oscillator of
low frequency (of order 1 Hz) is used. The charging and dis-
charging circuits are shown in Fig. 1.
The internal resistance of the oscillator (i.e., of the supply
voltage) is 50 X, and to a first approximation, this small
resistance can be ignored in comparison to that of the diode
in its reverse-biased condition. Thus, in our experiments, the
charging or discharging of the capacitor occurs predomi-
nantly through the resistance offered by the diode in the
reverse-biased condition. Measuring the capacitor voltage
without affecting the capacitor voltage is another difficulty
faced in the experiments. The voltage measuring instrument
ideally should have infinite input impedance, which is practi-
cally impossible to achieve, and hence in practice, a finite
Fig. 1. Circuits for charging (top) and discharging (bottom) a capacitor
through a reverse-biased diode.
impedance acts between the terminals of the capacitor. We
have found that a high-end digital storage oscilloscope
(DSO) of input impedance as high as 2 MX is not suitable in
some cases,3 especially in the discharging cases. This prob-
lem can be solved by using a data acquisition system instead
of a DSO. Arduino hardware is a low-cost and useful device
for its wide applicability and ease of use. Experiments using
an Arduino board (UNO R3, ATmega328P) are common in
undergraduate electronics courses. One of the Arduino’s ana-
log pins (A0 in our experiment) is used to store the voltage
on the capacitor (with the default resolution, which is less
than 5 mV). Note that the Arduino can provide both time
(with a resolution of 10 ms) and analog voltage data in a
user-friendly manner. The input impedance of the analog pin
of the Arduino board is 100 MX and is high enough com-
pared to the typical reverse-biased resistance of a diode.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The charging and discharging voltages described in Eqs.
(4) and (6) are shown in Fig. 2. Interestingly, it can be seen
from these figures that the capacitor voltage is a linear func-
tion of the charging (or discharging) time. The linear depen-
dence of the capacitor voltage on the charging (or
discharging) time is obtained theoretically as follows.
In practice, the supply voltage is Vs  5 V, and at room
temperature the thermal voltage V T is of order 50 mV. Since

418 Am. J. Phys., Vol. 86, No. 6, June 2018 Roy et al. 418
 IS
VC ¼ Vi  t: (9)
C
As we found earlier, Eq. (9) is linear with time. (Vi is the ini-
tial voltage of the capacitor.) When Eqs. (8) and (4) are plot-
ted together, the graphs are not distinguishable and overlap
one another. Thus, the assumption taken to simplify Eq. (4)
into Eq. (8) is valid and a good approximation for the above
cases under consideration. A similar observation is noticed
when Eqs. (9) and (6) are plotted together.
Experimental charging and discharging results for a diode
are shown in Fig. 3. The electrical circuits for these experi-
ments are the same as those shown in Fig. 1. Figure 3 is
experimental verification for a linear time dependence of the
charging and discharging voltage on a capacitor through a
reverse-biased diode. In addition, the slopes (charging or dis-
charging) obtained theoretically (from Fig. 2) and experi-
mentally (from Fig. 3) are found to be 30 V/s and 32 V/s,
respectively. The small deviation between the theoretical

Fig. 2. Top: Capacitor charging voltage as a function of time when charged

through a reverse-biased diode. This response is obtained by plotting Eq.
(4). Bottom: Discharge response of a capacitor when discharged though a
reverse-biased diode from Eq. (6). In this theoretical work, the typical values
of IS and VT are taken for a commercial Schottky diode (1N5822) (Ref. 7)
and a capacitor of capacitance 0.1 lF is considered. The magnitude of the
slopes of these plots are found to be 30 V/s.

VS  VT , the term eVS =VT  1 (since VS =VT  100), for

which Eq. (4) becomes
 
VC ðtÞ ¼ VS  VT ln 1 þ eVS =VT at : (7)

This equation can be further simplified for the case when

eVS =VT at  1. By imposing this condition, Eq. (7) results in
a simple linear time dependence, which is expressed by
IS
VC ¼ t: (8)
C
Thus, the charging voltage is a linear function of time with a
positive slope of Is/C. The necessary condition for linearity,
i.e., eðVS =VT atÞ  1, is maintained by considering cases when
the complete charging time is slightly less than CVS/VT, and
a typical diode-capacitor circuit satisfies this condition. It is
intuitive that a similar linear response can also be obtained
by charging a capacitor using a constant current source.
Inversely, the reverse-biased diode acts as a constant current Fig. 3. Experimental observation of the charging and discharging voltage of
source in our charging circuit. the capacitor through a reverse-biased diode. The circuit shown in Fig. 1 is
Similarly, for the case of discharging the capacitor through used with diode 1N5822 and a capacitance of 0.1 lF. The magnitude of the
a reverse-biased diode, Eq. (6) simplifies to slopes of these plots is estimated to be 32 V/s.

419 Am. J. Phys., Vol. 86, No. 6, June 2018 Roy et al. 419
and experimental findings is within the acceptable limit of
the experimental error.
The use of an oscillator as a voltage source for charging
the capacitor is not suitable for cases of longer charging and
discharging time. The first half cycle of the oscillator’s out-
put is used to charge the capacitor while the time for the sec-
ond half cycle is used for discharging of the capacitor. Thus,
if tc is the charging (or discharging time), then the time
period requirement is 2tc (or longer), or in other words the
frequency f must be 1/2 tc (or lower). Thus, for tc ¼ 1 s, the
frequency requirement is f ¼ 0.5 Hz or lower. Such an oscil-
lator of low frequency range is not commonly used in the
laboratory.
If required, the oscillator can be replaced by a DC
source with a push button switch. With this cost-effective
alternative, the capacitor gets charged by pressing the but-
ton and is allowed to discharge by releasing the button.
Experimental results obtained by using this technique are
shown in Fig. 4. As a further improvement of this tech-
nique, we suggest using a digital switch instead of an ana-
log switch.
In the reverse voltage range of 0–5 V, the reverse satura-
tion current for a silicon diode (in our example, 1N4007) is
Fig. 4. Instead of an oscillator, a DC source with push button switch is used
to charge and discharge a capacitor. The discharge is allowed through a
reverse-biased diode and the responses are shown in this figure. Top: Silicon
diode (1N4007), C ¼ 0.01 lF. Bottom: Schottky diode (1N5822),
C ¼ 0.22 lF.
420 Am. J. Phys., Vol. 86, No. 6, June 2018
of order 1 nA and that for a Schottky diode (in our example,
1N5822) is 1 lA. As a result, for a given capacitance, a sili-
con diode needs a longer time to charge or discharge in com-
parison to a Schottky diode. In other words, the rate of
charge and discharge will be slower in the case of a silicon
diode. Hence, instead of an oscillator, a DC source with a
push button switch technique is to be used for silicon diodes.
For curiosity, the reverse saturation current for a silicon
diode is estimated from the experimental plot. The magni-
tude of the slope (i.e., Is/C) of the plot shown at the top of
Fig. 4 is estimated to be 0.3 V/s. Thus, in this case (with
C ¼ 0.01 lF), the reverse saturation current Is ¼ 3 nA, and it
is indeed found to be in good agreement with the range
quoted in the datasheet.8
A deeper inspection of Figs. 3 and 4 reveals slight depar-
ture from a straight line response for both the charging and
discharging cases. The slight departure from the linearity
arises mainly from three factors. The first factor is the inter-
nal resistance of the supply voltage (which is the internal
resistance of the oscillator used in our experiments), and
this resistance appears in series with the voltage source.
The second factor is the input impedance of the voltage-
measuring instrument across the capacitor (which is the
Arduino in our experiments). In our circuit, this impedance
provides an additional voltage discharge path for the
charged capacitor. The third factor is the finite leakage cur-
rent of any capacitor.
The first factor can be minimized by using an oscillator
(or DC source) of very low output impedance (10 X or so).
Although this effect cannot be removed completely for the
charging case (due to the existence of a small but finite
impedance of the charging voltage source), the same can be
removed completely for the discharging case using a DC
source with a digital switch. The second factor can be mini-
mized by using a voltage measuring instrument having a
very high input impedance. The higher the input impedance,
the better the result. The third factor can be minimized by
using a capacitor of low internal leakage current. Instead of a
polyester capacitor (used in this work), a film capacitor
would give better results as the leakage current is minimal in
a film capacitor.
V. CONCLUSION
It is evident from this work that both the charging and
discharging voltages of a capacitor are a linear function of
time when a reverse-biased diode is used for charging or
discharging. Good agreement is shown between analytical
and experimental estimations. The magnitude of the slope
of the time-dependent charging and discharging voltage is
shown to be the ratio of the reverse saturation current of
the diode to the value of the capacitor. In laboratory prac-
tice, a little nonlinearity is observed in the voltage versus
time plot and relevant factors causing the nonlinearity are
discussed. It is instructive to compare responses from a
resistor-capacitor circuit with the diode-capacitor circuit. A
low-cost experiment is presented here, and the proposed
experiment is suitable for an undergraduate physics and
electronics laboratory.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Abhishek Mallick, Aparna Adhikari, and Priyanka Guin
would like to thank the Department of Science and
Roy et al. 420
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421 Am. J. Phys., Vol. 86, No. 6, June 2018 Roy et al. 421

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