It is essential to increase the switching speed of power devices to reduce the energy loss because high frequency is commonly used in power device operation these days. In this work electron irradiation has been conducted to reduce the lifetime of minority carriers and thereby to increase the switching speed of a$p^+- n^-$ junction diode. Effects of electron irradiation on the electrical properties of the diode are reported The switching speed is effectively increased. Also the junction leakages and the forward voltage drop which are anticipated to increase are found to be negligible in the $p^+- n^-$ junction diodes irradiated with the optimum energy and dose. The analysis results of DLTS and C-V profiling indicate that the defects induced by electron irradiation in the silicon substrate are donor-like ones which have the energy levels of 0.284 eV and 0.483 eV. Considering all the experimental results in this study, it might be concluded that electron irradiation is a very useful technique in improving the switching speed and thereby reducing the energy loss of $p^+- n^-$ junction diode power devices.