  The majority of current textbooks on device physics at the undergraduate
level derive the diode equation based on the diffusion of injected minority
carriers. Generally the drift of the majority carriers, or the extent of drift,
is not discussed and the importance of drift in the presence of a field in the
neutral regions is almost totally ignored. The assumptions of zero field in the
neutral regions and conduction by minority carrier diffusion lead to a number
of pedagogical problems and paradoxes for the student. The purpose of this
paper is to address the pedagogical problems and paradoxes apparent in the
current treatment of conduction in the pn junction as it appears in the
majority of texts.
