What is a schottky diode?

[@Afrotechmods]

Interested in learning about wireless power? Subscribers can get up to 80% off my course Wireless Power to the People - Wireless Charging 101 on udemy using the coupon code "KZbin" www.udemy.com/wireless-power-to-the-people-wireless-charging-101/?couponCode=KZbin

[@cdrive5757]

After watching your video I couldn't help but muse over decades of "Academia" looking down their pompous snorkels at the mere mention of ANY information garnered from the internet. I'm long retired now but back in my early years I was owner / operator of a Land Mobile Radio / Marine Electronics shop. Back in those days we actually did component level diagnostics and replacement. Four evenings a week I was teaching an Industrial Electronics course for the Florida's adult ed program. A stick of chalk and a blackboard were the tools of the day. It's from that perspective that I can unequivocally state that your entire presentation is nothing short of superb! Absolutely every aspect of your presentation is STELLAR! Video, content structure and above all ... content depth & accuracy worthy of any institute of higher learning. Hey, I subscribed!!! Chris S.

[@Afrotechmods]

Thank you 😊

[@hankus253]

The concise, informative and TO THE POINT nature of your videos is something that a lot of other KZbin contributors could learn from. Two thumbs up. Okay at least one for sure.

[@AshtonCoolman]

Thumbs up for an excellent use of the Predator thermal vision sound effect.

[@caturdaynite7217]

Caught that, pretty cool.

[@douglasbillington8521]

Sweet

[@tkd4zgqg]

I noticed that too, Great, LOL

[@Npc5150]

He also referenced a scene in the movie when he said that the schottky was on steroids and the silicon diode was "pushing pencils." That was Arnold's line to Dillon when they were arm wrestling.

[@syrus3k]

Instant thumbs up.

[@bennievaneeden8625]

You are one of the best teachers ever.Even though it is not in my primary language I could always understand you videos and humor very clearly.I know that making these videos must take a lot of time especially at this quality.so Thank you!

[@w2aew]

Hey - I never realized that you included a reference to my switching time video in here! Thanks!

[@fullwaverecked]

You are a large part of a very small group of top notch electronics videos. :)

[@Erik-yw9kj]

That poor diode at the end. You took its magic smoke away. They can't work without their magic smoke, and once it comes out, you can't get it back in.

[@Madvillian]

I like you

[@Teqnyq]

:-(

[@BillAnt]

This is such a great video, but the DiodeGoneWild guy would probably go wild if he saw that poor little diode burning at the end... ha-ha kzbin.info/door/Qak2_fXZ_9yXI5vB_Kd54g

[@jennaorlowski9228]

😢

[@LTJR.]

Diode die-oh!.......'lectro come an me diode done gone....😖

[@prakashdev6008]

Great video with oscilloscope waveforms and detailed explanations covering the relevant minute points. Thank you for all the practical demonstrations. Good knowledge for an electronics engineer. Please cover popular ICs, diacs, triacs and other lesser used components

[@ksb2112]

Afrotechmods consistently boils down the essential points to make it vastly easier for a beginner to understand what is going on.

[@nitehawk86]

SED, Smoke Emitting Diode

[@laharl2k]

nitehawk86 well sign me for the new electronic smoke signal emitter. Now i just need to figure out how to demodulate it :(

[@jay7264]

He let out the magic smoke lol its like a genie do I get 3 wishes

[@6F6G]

nitehawk86 That was ordinary grey smoke. I once saw a high voltage capacitor die and give off pink smoke.

[@6F6G]

Laharl Krichevskoy Red Indians have used them for centuries. They would stand on mountaintops and look out for wagon trains or US cavalry and inform the rest of the tribe by typing the message into their communicator and pressing send. The communicator would then encode the message and transmit it by sending current pulses through the SED array.

[@vazhayilmathaivarghesemath7288]

ratcat17

[@flamencoprof]

Hi, I trained as a telecommunications tech way back in the late 70's. I have lived decades thinking I knew all about this stuff, but haven't been actually building circuits or anything even like that. (I've been dealing with more & more optical fibre technology lately) I found this video re-educational and a useful reminder that pigeonholed old knowledge is vague and unreliable. Thanks!

[@AppliedScience]

Excellent tutorial!

[@MichaelOlsen-Engineer]

Sweat! This was an excellent video covering the basics of Schottky diodes. This will be a big help with many of my beginning electronics students.

[@hamayunsiddiquesiddique7663]

Applied Science ì+i

[@JensAndree]

Probably the best video to date I've seen clearly describing the difference between a diode and a schottky diode - in just 6 minutes!

[@charanjitsingh7190]

Everyone says or writes about the fast switching without any examples. Seeing it first time in your video made sense instantly :)

[@jasonh2081]

I enjoy the way you demonstrate in a no nonsense way these differences. I did not realize there were the differences between a normal diode and a shottky. Thank you again for your information.

[@SireSquish]

The predator references and sound effects are most definitely appreciated :).

[@BrunoPonce]

Def nice touch!

[@w2aew]

Thanks for the reference to my TRR video! Nice job as always!

[@johndickson76]

I studied electronics many moons ago but for some reason Schottky diodes were never covered in the course. Not a problem with this excellent tutorial 👍

[@cobragt4001]

I'm confused, I assume with the electron theory, the flow of current moves from negative to positive and the conventional theory states current moves from positive to negative. I was taught current enters the cathode then the anode.

[@BLAKxRAYN]

This is a pretty common error based on how electricity used to be "understood" in like the 1800s, but yes, electron flow goes from negative to the positive side.

[@vylbird8014]

You are not the only one to be confused. The problem stems from history: Back in the dark ages (ie, pre-1900) people discovered electrical charge, but knew nothing of the direction in which charge carriers flowed. For convenience, one charge was declared to be positive, the other negative, and diagrams always depicted flow from positive to negative. Many years later someone started playing with electron beams and magnets, and discovered that the charge carriers actually went the other way - but you can't go back and redraw a hundred years worth of texts! So we have been dealing ever since with the rather odd situation of drawing arrows the wrong way. But don't worry about it, anyone working with electronics gets used to it very quickly. You rarely need to even think about which way the electrons flow, unless you are working with the old vacuum tubes.

[@louistournas120]

+Vyl Bird:"Many years later someone started playing with electron beams and magnets, and discovered that the charge carriers actually went the other way - but you can't go back and redraw a hundred years worth of texts! " ==That doesn't quite explain it. You said many years later. So, not much time has passed between people drawing circuits and people discovering the actual charge carriers in metals is the electron.

[@louistournas120]

+MichaelKingsfordGray:"In many circuits, especially chemical ones, the carriers are positive ions, not electrons. There is NO correct way to specify current." ==But you just said the charge carriers are positive ions, so you point the vector in the direction these positive ions go, in your chemistry notebook.

[@hellterminator]

+louis tournas But the ions can be negative too.

[@meganlove4242]

This is an outstanding tutorial and without exception the best explanation of the schottky diode I have heard in both my personal and professional experience. Job well done.

[@austingeorge6659]

Wish I knew of these videos back in college. Great job explaining and showing!

[@seannot-telling9806]

Thanks for taking time to give us this video. Only thing missing was the sparks. You had the smoke.

[@ChrisDIYerOklahoma]

Nice. Been having some issues with the Schottky blocking diodes in my solar panels. I use a Fluke 117 multimeter in "diode checker" mode and found it to be really good at checking diodes pulled out of a solar panel. Thanks for making this video...it helped. Badass Predator music insert with that thermo imaging clip!

[@airthrow]

I work in an electronics store and had to use this video to learn more about Schottkys, thank you!

[@derosoft]

Very informative. I have been using diodes for years and only knew about the switching speed, never realized the other aspect of voltaqge drop (I still try to use Germanium diode when I find them for the smallest voltage drop)... Thanks again for a very clear description of pro's and con's.

[@Homeaudioacademy]

+1 for the predator SFX!

[@GoodOlKuro]

took me a second to get it lolz

[@MsMadLemon]

I have schottky diodes but had no idea what the difference was. Nice clear explanation, thanks!

[@SilverBullet93GT]

Chotchkie's diodes have to have at least 15 pieces of flair to function properly

[@andrewdettra2644]

Love the oscilloscope, really put everything together!

[@OnHoldAt50]

Informative refresher. Thanks Love how you fried the diode for a close. A man after my own heart.

[@kunasagaran5740]

Thank you. It is a refresher course me. After many years it takes me back to my younger years. Excellent and precise explanation.

[@nicknielsen5864]

Great tutorial, particularly the end. I always love to watch the magic smoke escape...

[@BrunoPonce]

Need a tune for this. Got it! Change 'Who Let The dogs out' to 'Who let the smoke out'. I'm sure someone else already alluded to this but I don't care. It's still funny to me. You know how enginerds are...

[@MarkTillotson]

Nice clear video, especially the important detail of the high leakage currents that Schottky diodes can have at temperature. Just have to quibble with your use of capitalized SI units: The units are volts, amperes (amps), watts. The people are called Volta, Ampere and Watt, you only capitalize the names of people, not units (the exception is degress Celcius, because that is the name of a person, but kelvin is the unit of thermodynamic temperature, Kelvin refers to lord Kelvin.) This distinction is often handy, for instance clarifying that Ampere's law isn't just about amperes... Furthermore if you think about it we'd never capitalize Inch, Metre, Foot, Gallon, Pound... Now I'm worrying if you can say "schottky diode" or always have to say "Schottky diode"... :)

[@Afrotechmods]

***** Hah you are right. Good catch

[@OSrBurns]

***** I keep missing the conversion for Fahrenheit, it's a really bad temperature system.

[@argo1argo1]

***** It's Celsius.

[@MarkTillotson]

Charles Sammut Yes, that's a good point!

[@vazhayilmathaivarghesemath7288]

.. plane is shaking though WELL not achan kunj peedikayil

[@NoobixCube]

Very keen to see a video on the zener diode. I don't fully understand them, about all I know is it has something to do with a desired point at which a diode will allow reverse flow, or something, and even that is probably wrong.

[@jorgewashington2981]

Zeners are used to regulate voltages and operate in breakdown mode. Depending on the load a zener will vary the current through it while maintaining a constant voltage at the load when of course connected in parallel with the load.

[@josipzlk8019]

this is best tutororial on youtube i finaly know why is schottky diode deferent than regular diode

[@eraclecogito4293]

For a beginner your tutorials are gold, keep it up!

[@RingingResonance]

0:26 electrons flow in the opposite direction, from negative to positive or from Cathode to Anode.

[@GoldSrc_]

+MadeOfSolder Look up "conventional current flow".

[@RingingResonance]

Conventional current flow if how it was originally thought to work, it was proven wrong by the cathode ray tube early on in electronics. For all intents and purposes, when designing a new circuit you must account for the fact that current flows from cathode to anode.

[@GoldSrc_]

MadeOfSolder Yes, it was proven to be wrong, but by the time they figured it out a lot of books had been made using conventional current flow, and well, it got stuck with us.

[@daveTV]

We used to use schottky diodes on our RC car brushed motors back in the day. I never knew why and kinda still don't know what's the purpose. They came with the electronic speed controller and it was suppose to be applied across the motors positive and negative tabs. It was for racing purposes so the speed controllers didn't have reverse. They were forward and brake only.

[@Afrotechmods]

Watch my video on inductive spiking

[@ArcanePath360]

I wish all electronics videos were this well tutored

[@nicholasmaude6906]

I'd like to know if discrete small-signal Schottky transistors are manufactured?

[@ivanoxx]

I lost it at predator vision

[@Mach7RadioIntercepts]

Whoah, this video takes me back to my early days in amateur radio, figuring out diode mixers for UHF / microwave freqs. At one time you could buy these at a local Radio Shack.

[@TheRocketSmith]

Glad to see you're still a fan of Arnold.

[@jkuebler89]

What happened to you Afrotech? I used to love watching your videos, simple and to the point. Now thst I am tesching electronics they come in handy, we need you back sir!

[@youtubasoarus]

1:17 - Predator, is that you? Do you want some candy? O_o

[@WeebLabs]

***** Fancy seeing you here!

[@SONOFAZOMBIE2025]

***** Predators don't need to spend money on infra red cameras. BTW, why would a predator want to eat candy; they probably want to eat your heart instead. lol

[@apinakapinastorba]

Same joke twice.

[@FarleyHillBilly]

DED Dark Emitting Diode

[@DoomRater]

The ironic thing about that is the heat vision is how they NORMALLY see, the helmet helps them see more normally or in other unique ways.

[@debabrata2137]

Sir I have a question. As we know, schottky diode is preferable at high frequency. And it has a large reverse saturation current. So is it preferable for "high amplitude high frequency signal"(having high +ve and -ve voltage) or "low amplitude high frequency signal" ?

[@juans6639]

Excellent presentation. Our fellow technicians used to say that the magic smoke came out of the I.C.'s, Transistors or diodes. LOL.

[@solarsynapse]

Good explanation. Would a Shottky be better suited as a flywheel/flyback diode for a DC brushed electric motor?

[@kieferonline]

I never considered The Predator would be so well suited to troubleshooting electronics.

[@Teenagegoogoomuk]

You can actually type in the name of the sinewave on your scope? Nice.I noticed you put the component name on each wave form.Man I'm getting old, but my 1980's Hitachi O-scope is still holding up.

[@sanseiryu]

I used to replace blown diodes on microwave ovens that looked like these but were quite a bit larger. I would find them on the capacitors for the hi-voltage section of the microwave oven. Easy and quick fix.

[@Jeremyveleber-makes-stuff]

I bought a bunch of stuff from Amazon on your behalf the other day. Keep up these great videos! Looking forward to the zener video.

[@Afrotechmods]

Jeremy Makes Stuff Thanks! :D

[@ZBott]

It took me longer than I want to admit the Predator heat vision sound effect. Great touch.

[@itolond]

How would schottky diode be used in a 12VDC (-) isolation earth scenario. EG 2 doors each with door open switch (to Ground) . Each one needs to operate a light independently (which has 12VDC+) but also must be connected for a unified trigger signal to an Alarm. The schottky diode would need to allow current to flow from or to ground?

[@237arun]

Awesome video man! The predator soundtrack for the thermal image killed it!

[@dalenassar9152]

Thanks, Learned a LOT!!!! But, please, what does P.I.N. stand for??

[@pirelli77]

a question: if i want to protect an ebike motor with 3 cables, where do i connect the diodes? cross over to all cables (A-B, B-C, A-C) or do I disconnect the cables and solder them in between?

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

2:07 Notice how the resistance goes down with increasing temperature, just like other diodes. #ThermalRunaway

[@thetruthexperiment]

How I wish they taught his in high school. It’s such a practical application of science and math. It’s so fascinating.

[@anwarigroup]

It is goog view about schottky diod. I was also searching for varicap diode, but couldn't found in your videos.

[@MichaelOlsen-Engineer]

Sweat! This was an excellent video covering the basics of Schottky diodes. This will be a big help with many of my beginning electronics students.

[@greggharrington2322]

Very helpful. Thank you. I guess I follow up question/video request would be; what other kinds of Diodes are there and what are their uses?

[@belgrademachine]

You are a great teacher! Thank you

[@victorpittman7136]

I've heard that a lot of so called germanium diodes are actually schottky's. Could the procedure starting at 2:14 be used to tell the difference ? From what I'm seeing when comparing the germanium and the schottky the oscilloscope output would look just like @ 3:20 showing the fast recovery of the schottky and the reverse current of the germanium. Is this correct ?

[@rikschaaf]

If you don't mind the voltage drop, couldn't you put 2 shottky diodes (or 1 shottky and one silicon diode) in series to reduce the reverse current flow?

[@TheMoppersmurf]

You make things very easy to understand. Way better as expensive books in my own language! So thank you very much for all those vids. :)

[@jtveg]

Brilliant. These videos are perfect for beginners in electronics.

[@TheSwissGabber]

I would recommend taking double the voltage rating over nominal operation rather then adding a mere 10V to the peak First of all the 10Vs are an overkill if you expect 5V peak and not enough if you are at 500V. Second there are benefits from using a higher blocking voltage (i.e. cosmic ray failure rate)

[@fernandojunior3739]

Hello and good day to you sir... I'm interested on understanding to build a power supply using a transformer 12v-0-12v@2A/25VA.. I don't have any eletronic lessons backgrounds. But most of your video's helped me a lot on repairing power supply and eletronic ballast. I work at as a technician at a pet shop and most of my problem is with power supplys. If possible would you help me to understand more.. thank you.

[@neziranzri]

Hello, I am a bit confused. "Every diode takes a time to switch from allowing forward current to blocking reverse current", I need more explanation on that. This Schottky diode is connected in forward bias, I suppose. How come the reverse current is present even when it is connected in forward bias? I need your clarification ASAP, thank you! Nice video btw.

[@felixcat4346]

It seems the schottky diode should be doing a poor job of rectification if its leaking more than the silicon diode.

[@srinivasan7790]

You mentioned schottky diode showed better switching characteristics than silicon diode. At that time, what about the reverse flow of current? isn't it a problem.

[@bledlbledlbledl]

Worked on a piece of equipment awhile back that used a double-barrel schottky. just kidding. sort of. the switching power supply used two schottky diodes in parallel on the 24VDC input, in the protect-against-backwards-voltage circuit.. :P

[@realitye1761]

+Amadeus Rock Thanks alot! Very helpful. Question: if integrated circuits are millions of electronic components in a minituarized circuit board, then does it make discrete components obsolete? If I wanted to manufacture let's say..an air conditioner, all I would need is that single IC since it has everything I need, right?

[@chrisvolk4730]

It's so good to have you back Afro. I was beginning to wonder if the CIA had you pushing too many pencils.

[@HobbyOrganist]

I ran into an interesting issue with my pipe organ, it has several hundred 12vdc valves typically used in groups of 61 or 73 for one rank of pipes. I used a standard diode on the valves to stop the coil voltage collapse from sending DC current back to the contacts which tends to damage them over time. I turn each rank on- with a 12vdc auto headlight relay which connects the bare copper wire negative bus to the neg terminal on the rectifier to complete the circuit for the valves. The problem was two things- all of the electro magnets in the 40, 60 and 90 OHM valves were acting as a sort of pseudo ground and completing the circuit without the 12vdc contact being on. In addition, I had "pairs" of 2 ranks wired to a "66 block" telco punch block to save having to run 73 wires to the relays for every single rank. That was when I wound up having to add another diode on every single valve's positive input wire so the groups of valves could not self ground, and to keep each rank separated despite having common positives for pairs of 2 ranks on the 66 blocks. I also added diodes on the 12vdc auto headlight relays too, to make sure they only work in one direction. That did the trick :)

[@hankosaurus]

Well done. Excellent speech, audio, and presentation. Thank you.

[@markfischer3626]

What if you put one of each in series? You get the advantage of both, fast switching and low reverse current flow.

[@hv1461]

Nice video. What about the physics underlying the characteristics you describe here.

[@MyBigThing2010]

trying to flash an LED string with an inline effect chip...the whole set up runs off 5V usb normally..but I want the LED effect string to power off of raw speaker signal power..I got it working partially...at high volume the built in shut off is triggered in the amp in the shelf stereo "head unit" ...can I use a diode somewhere with a big value to prevent the triggering of the shut off or should I build a bleed resistance at the end of the line to soak up surges? not sure how to proceed with this one and I'm still fairly new to the hobby do any help would be greatly appreciated....I wanna know why things work so it would be a huge bonus if you could elaborate your suggestion.. but I'll take the Lego part fix answer too! I'm desperate. THANKS

[@freetrailer4poor]

Great video but I was wondering about voltage drops near 0 amps. It appears to me near 0 amps there is no voltage drop? Thus you can't use the forward voltage drop of a diode to lower voltage of a solar panel?

[@TheHunChem]

0:26 Okay, we talked about letting current through One direction. When are we actually doing it? :D

[@Afrotechmods]

HunChem Enable video annotations for the link to the older diode tutorial video

[@TheHunChem]

Afrotechmods I didn't actually expect you not to get such an obvious joke :P

[@wb5rue]

Excellent yet simple description. CHEERS!

[@realitye1761]

Afrotechmods From what I understand, a diode is a semiconductor. If the point of electronics is to conduct electricity in order to do work, what's the advantage of having something that semi-conducts? Also, I know what series and parallel mean, but I can only visualize it on schematics, not on a real circuit board. Can you give an example or pictorial of components in series and parallel in a real circuit?

[@sostenuto]

Electronics is not a thing (that conducts electricity), it is a science. A conductor is a thing that conduct electricity. The point of electronics is entirely dependent on what are you trying to accomplish with it. Semi-conductors have a lot of "advantages". They can be used for switching, rectification of AC current into DC, regulation, amplification signal generation and so on. The applications are virtually endless. As for finding components in series and parallel in a real circuit, you simply have to follow the layout of the board and draw out the schematic on paper. There are no visual clues that I know of so you must trace the components.

[@johnduff-tytler3548]

Very clear talking .Very Good Teaching .

[@orimusic9707]

Highly appreciate the amount of time you spent to explain this! Far better than my useless professor!

[@ARepnitskiy]

Can you use Schottky and Sillicon diodes simultaneously in serious connection to have both, low back current and better rectification on higher frequency?

[@technocrawln4796]

Maan I've seen this at school it was so complicated but when I look this video its a lot more easy to understand

[@smiley235]

Technocrawl N4 Exactly, if more teachers were like him, the world would advance faster.

[@djpcradock]

Love the Predator heat vision effect :D

[@kenmore01]

It's also hard to find them with over 100V blocking voltage. 60-80V is much more common.

[@proyectosledar]

great video!! thanks. saludos

[@vermillionreaper]

wow, no me esperaba verte por aca

[@waynesmith9463]

not related to this video but I since that you may be able to advise me on another problem. My boat has a 12 lot battery bank (400 am-hours) I operate a 12 volt Television from these batteries. Whenever the fresh water pump or other significant 12 vlot comes on the TV goes off due to low voltage but can be restarted moments later. Can I solve this problem with capacitors, larger wire size, or other means?

[@biswajeetsingh4994]

This video is being suggested to me by KZbin for many months or a year but I always skip this excellent video. Today I saw this video and wondering how amazingly great video I used to skip.

[@jackriley5974]

1960, Keesler AFB, Biloxi, Mississippi,, transistor theory? The instructor points to a sketch of a triode transistor and says "It does this, we're not sure why, take our word for it! Time flies!!!

[@MrRickyw01]

Keep the good information flowing.

[@technology5821]

Can you use a Schottky in parallel with a 12v DC motor for protection? Or would a regular silicon diode work?

[@aytacdede81]

Excellent video. I have question; I have a UPS in feedback output I have 23v although I have a consumption of 1.2A the 4 amp bridge type diodes heat up medium frequency alternative energy has 44khz.Instead of using bridge diodes, would using Shottky Diode improve? Since the current diode gets hot! I want to improve it.Thank you very much for your reply.

[@Afrotechmods]

This sounds like a perfect application where you should make a bridge rectifier out of 4 schottkies.

[@zorabixun]

Ok, but tell me .... on the oscilloscope we didn't see the reversal current going through the schottky diod, so why later on you say that schottky is letting reversal current more than silicone diod ?? ..... thx

[@Salsuero]

Why not run a schottky diode and a silicon diode in series and get the best of both worlds in terms of switching time and backwards leakage? Obviously the heat dissipation would be an issue, but do diodes really matter all that much in terms of the addition of heat to a circuit? I'm not an electrical engineer, so I don't know if this is a bad idea for a practical reason (as opposed to an economical one).

[@Afrotechmods]

The voltage drop and heat dissipation could very well be an issue yes. There's usually one diode out there that will meet all the users requirements it's very rare that you'll have to put two in series.

[@marcus_w0]

Very nice Video. It's all about quality, not quantity.

[@JoshuaRando]

Marcus Wiedner I agree very much. :)

[@SONOFAZOMBIE2025]

Marcus Wiedner It was about diodes.

[@zilog357]

In the provided information, I would emphasize that the peak inverse voltage (PIV) is always lower than 100 volts due to the Schottky diode thinner silicon layer and that is why high-voltage hi-speed switching normal PN diodes are used instead for switching power supplies working with line voltages. You know, 0.6V Vf is not much anyway at those voltages. On the other hand, Schottky diodes are great for low voltage applications like DC-DC voltage (buck) converters and things like rectifying or "protecting" solar panels from reverse current flows. In those cases, the very low Vf of Schottky diodes is ideal, as 0.6v Vf from normal diodes is actually the output of one single solar cell. It would be like if the cell wouldn't even be there. I have seen power Schottky diodes (600A) with a Vf of about 0.08v which are great for that purpose.