A harmonic method to determine Shockley's relation parameters for a diode

A new method for obtaining parameters
n
and I
s
of Shockley's relation for a diode as well as the parasitic series resistance R
s
is proposed. By injecting into the diode a sinusoidal current I
1
added to a dc bias I
0
and measuring the harmonic contents of the resulting voltage, it is easy to obtain the ideality coefficient from the second harmonic; the fundamental leads to the series resistance R
s
and the dc component to I
s
. The harmonic spectrum is only function of the ratio
I_{1}/I_{0}
, making it very easy to monitor parameter variations with injection level. Moreover, the identification precision is simply stated, as opposed to previously published methods.