Opto Electronics [EE-471] Lab Manual

Laboratory Exercise 01
08

Objective

Study the characteristics of LED.

Find the relationship between LED voltage and current.
Find the Wavelength of Light
ight Emitted.

Theory

Like a common diode, the LED (Light Emitting Diode) consists of a P-N contact. When a PN
junction is forward biased, current flows within it. This current flow will cause electrons and holes to
move is a manner that an electron will move to fill a hole. When this happens, the electron will fall to
a lower energy level and this will release an amount of energy in the form of photons. In a larger
scale, those photons will produce light.

LEDs are diodes and to light an LED, it must be forward connected. This means that the anode of the
LED must be connected to the positive pole of a battery, and the cathode must be connected to the
negative pole. This is how to determine the anode and the cathode lead of an LED. Determining the
anode and the cathode of a new LED is not very hard. The first way is from the length of its leads.
The anode lead is longer than the cathode lead of the led.

The energy radiated is proportional to the energy gap. The higher the energy gap, the greater the
frequency of emitted light.

Figure1-1 Light Emitting Diode

Band Gap Eg=hf

Since Eg=hf /

= WaveLength
C =Velocity of light
h=Planks Constant

Vknee = Vth = Eg (eV)

= WaveLength = 1.24/ Eg

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 Opto Electronics [EE-471] Lab Manual

Apparatus

LED (Red, Green, Yellow)

Power Supply (10v Variable)
Resisters (1k, 47k)

Circuit Diagram

Observation

Red Green Yellow

V Applied
S. No. VLED ILED VLED ILED VLED ILED
(V)
(V) (mA) (V) (mA) (V) (mA)

2
Graph

RED Green Yellow

Result

From the graph the relation between LEDs voltage & current is observed.

It is -------------------------- (Linear/ Nonlinear).

a. Vth = Eg =(RED) = ---------------------- V

b. Vth = Eg =(GREEN) = ---------------------- V

c. Vth = Eg =(YELLOW) = ---------------------- V

Conclusion