A PIN diode is a diode with a wide, lightly doped 'near' intrinsic semiconductor region between a p-type semiconductor and an n-type semiconductor region. The p-type and n-type regions are typically heavily doped because they are used for ohmic contacts.
The wide intrinsic region is in contrast to an ordinary PN diode. The wide intrinsic region makes the PIN diode an inferior rectifier (one typical function of a diode), but it makes the PIN diode suitable for attenuators, fast switches, photodetectors, and high voltage power electronics applications.
Read more about PIN Diode: Operation, Characteristics, Example Diodes
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