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Concept
Flyback diode
Summary
A flyback diode is any diode connected across an inductor used to eliminate flyback, which is the sudden voltage spike seen across an inductive load when its supply current is suddenly reduced or interrupted. It is used in circuits in which inductive loads are controlled by switches, and in switching power supplies and inverters.
Flyback circuits have been used since 1930 and were refined starting in 1950 for use in television receivers. The word flyback comes from the horizontal movement of the electron beam in a cathode ray tube, because the beam flew back to begin the next horizontal line.
This diode is known by many other names, such as snubber diode, commutating diode, freewheeling diode, suppressor diode, clamp diode, or catch diode.
Fig. 1 shows an inductor connected to a battery - a constant voltage source. The resistor represents the small residual resistance of the inductor's wire windings. When the switch is closed, the voltage from the battery is applied to the inductor, causing current from the battery's positive terminal to flow down through the inductor and resistor. The increase in current causes a back EMF (voltage) across the inductor due to Faraday's law of induction which opposes the change in current. Since the voltage across the inductor is limited to the battery's voltage of 24 volts, the rate of increase of the current is limited to an initial value of so the current through the inductor increases slowly as energy from the battery is stored in the inductor's magnetic field. As the current rises, more voltage is dropped across the resistor and less across the inductor, until the current reaches a steady value of with all the battery voltage across the resistance and none across the inductance.
However, the current drops rapidly when the switch is opened in Fig. 2. The inductor resists the drop in current by developing a very large induced voltage of polarity in the opposite direction of the battery, positive at the lower end of the inductor and negative at the upper end.
Official source
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