A voltage biased Zener diode always exhibit positive differential resistance, thus cannot be used as an element to provide amplification of a signal. We show how to induce negative differential resistance in the reverse bias regime of a 12V Zener diode by noise feedback. We use this to build a voltage amplifier in the audio frequency range, which we characterize by providing bandwidth, gain, power consumption, gain compression and output noise spectral density.
@article{arxiv.2603.23169,
title = {Amplification based on the noise-induced negative differential resistance in a Zener diode},
author = {Alexandre Dumont and Bertrand Reulet},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.23169},
year = {2026}
}