..

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

..

"There are times when silence speaks so much more loudly than words of praise to only as good as belittle a person, whose words do not express, but only put a veneer over true feelings, which are of gratitude at this point of time."

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my physics teacher Mrs. Nidhi Goel, for her vital support, guidance and encouragement. And also our laboratory assistant sir Mr.Umesh who helped me a lot during the course of the project. And to all those without whose efforts, this project would not have taken this form.

Thank you, Shubham dokania XII-C

.. ..

AIM

TO STUDY THE BEHAVIOUR OF LED (LIGHT EMITTING DIODE) AS LIGHT DETECTOR

..

THEORY

..

LED (light emitting diode) is a semiconductor p-n junction diode which emits light of several wavelengths when a forward biased current is passed through it. They find a lot of uses in todays world , for instance: indicator lamps in many devices and are increasingly used for other lighting. Appearing as practical electronic components in 1962, early LEDs emitted low-intensity red light, but modern versions are available across the visible, ultraviolet, and infrared wavelengths, with very high brightness.

WORKING:
When the device is forward biased , the electrons are able to recombine with the holes and release energy from the holes. This is called as electroluminescence and the colour of the light( energy of the photon ) emitted is determined by the energy gap of the semiconductor.the circuit diagram of an LED is as shown in the circuit diagram:

Here in this project , we are going to discuss that if LEDs emit energy ( in the form of light ) when a

potential difference ( forward ) is maintained , so , Is the reverse also possible ? it is found via experiments that , when certain LEDs are exposed to light of different wavelengths , a potential difference is induced across it ( given that the source has high intensity and the LED is reversed biased ) and thus behave as light detector for small purposes. The circuit diagram can be given as :

The structure of a LED is :

When light falls on the semiconductor part, the electrons are flown and the effect of different lights on different LED is different. The colours of the LEDs are because of the different semiconductor compounds used, they are given in the table below: COLOURS WAVELENGTH Infrared Red Orange Yellow >760 nm 610<<760 nm 590<<610 nm 570<<590 nm SEMICONDUCTOR
Gallium arsenide (GaAs) Aluminium gallium arsenide (AlGaAs) gallium arsenide phosphide ( GaAsP ) gallium(III) phosphide ( GaP) Gallium arsenide phosphide ( GaAsP)

Aluminium gallium indium Phosphide ( AlGaInP)

Green Blue

500<<570 nm 450<<500 nm

Indium gallium nitride ( InGaN ) Gallium (III) nitride ( GaN ) Zinc selenide ( ZnSe ) Silicon carbide ( SiC ) [as substrate]

When the light of same or less wavelength as that of the LED falls on it , a very small potential difference is induced which can be detected by a multimeter .

..

EXPERIMENT

..

In this experiment, we have the apparatus as mentioned below. APPARATUS : Some LEDs of different colours, a bright source of light ( maybe of different colours ), a digital multimeter . we assemble the circuit in reverse bias as shown in the theory and connect the voltage terminals to the clips of the multimeter. Now a light source of high intensity is brought nesr the LED and the change in the reading of the multimeter is noted in the observation table . This experiment is repeated with different LEDs and ( if available ) different coloured sources to check for the maximum induced voltage. The data ( or the readings observed ) is to be recorded in the given table for the compilation of the result.

OBSERVATION TABLE :
The data is to be recorded in this table: COLOUR OF LED USED Red blue yellow white COLOUR OF LIGHT SOURCE White White White White INDUCED VOLTAGE

After taking two or three readings of each colour , the best ( maximum ) reading has been entered in the above table .

RESULT : the result for the above experiment is that , ................. coloured LED produces the maximum potential difference for white light. Sources of error(if any):
1. The multimeter would not be able to detect the very small changes in the voltage. 2. The LEDs used in the experiment may not be of good quality. 3. The lights from the surroundings may be interfering with the experiment.

..

CONCLUSION

..

From the experiment we performed, we can say that LEDs not only emit light , but also detect it. This property has been already discovered and scientists are working on the practical applications of it so that it can be used instead of the costly light detectors/sensors.

The actual result of this experiment ( as performed by the scientists) was that the red LED produces the maximum potential difference among these because it can detect more wavelengths as compared to the latter, but the result of this experiment may vary due to severel reasons which I cannot explain.

..

BIBILOGRAPHY

..

1. Google, Wikipedia, instructables and other internet resources. 2. A book in physics H.C.Verma(part I and II) 3. NCERT textbook of physics .

Thank you