In the first part of this series, we took a look at a “toy” negative-differential-resistance circuit made from two ordinary transistors. Although this circuit allows experimentation with ...

The history of the diode is a fun one as it’s rife with accidental discoveries, sometimes having to wait decades for a use for what was found. Two examples of that are our first two topics: thermionic ...

A thermal diode is a two-terminal nonlinear device that rectifies energy carriers (for example, photons, phonons and electrons) in the thermal domain, the heat transfer analogue to the familiar ...