The Department of

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Fall 2020
ECE 3300 – Electronics - I

Semiconductor Materials and pn - Junction

Instructor: Dr. Syed Rafay Hasan
Associate Professor
Email: [email protected]
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From overall Course Perspective
• Semiconductor Materials
• Diodes
• MOSFETs - DC and Small Signal Amplifiers
• BJTs – DC and Small Signal Amplifier
• Multistage Amplifiers
• Simulations using LTSpice

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Inspired from: Microelectronics 4e McGrawHill - Neamen
Overview
• Gain a basic understanding of semiconductor material properties
• Two types of charged carriers that exist in a semiconductor
• Two mechanisms that generate currents in a semiconductor

• Determine the properties of a pn junction

• Ideal current–voltage characteristics of a pn junction diode

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Intrinsic Semiconductors
• Ideally 100% pure material

• Elemental semiconductors
• Silicon (Si)
• Most common semiconductor used today
• Germanium (Ge)
• First semiconductor used in p-n diodes

• Compound semiconductors
• Gallium Arsenide (GaAs)

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 Silicon Atoms in Crystal Matrix

• Covalent bonding of one Si atom with four other Si atoms to form tetrahedral unit cell.
• Valence electrons available at edge of crystal to bond to additional Si atoms.

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 Effect of Temperature

• As temperature increases, a bond can

• At 0K, no bonds are broken. break, releasing a valence electron and
• Si is an insulator. leaving a broken bond (hole).
• Current can flow.

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Energy Band Diagram

Ev – Maximum energy of a valence electron or hole

Ec – Minimum energy of a free electron
Eg – Energy required to break the covalent bond

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Movement of Positively Charged “Empty state”
or Hole

A valence electron in a nearby

bond can move to fill the broken
bond, making it appear as if the
‘hole’ shifted locations.

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 Animation: At room temperature, some of the covalent bonds are
broken by thermal generation. Each broken bond gives rise to a free
electron and a hole, both of which become available for current
conduction.

• silicon at low temps: • silicon at room temp:

• all covalent bonds are intact • sufficient thermal energy exists
• no electrons are available for to break some covalent bonds,
conduction freeing an electron and creating
hole
• conducitivity is zero
• a free electron may wander from
its parent atom
the process of freeing electrons, creating holes, • a hole will attract neighboring
and filling them facilitates current flow electrons

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Inspired from : Oxford University Publishing Microelectronic Circuits by Adel S. Sedra and Kenneth C. Smith (0195323033)
Intrinsic Carrier Concentration

 Eg

ni  BT e 32 2 kT

ni = number of free electrons and holes in a unit volume for intrinsic semiconductor
B – coefficient related to specific semiconductor – (5.23E15 cm-3K-3/2 for silicon)
T – temperature in Kelvin
Eg – semiconductor bandgap energy – (1.12eV for silicon)
k – Boltzmann’s constant (8.62E-5 eV/K)

3
ni ( Si,300K )  1.5 x10 cm 10

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Extrinsic Semiconductors
Impurity atoms replace some of the atoms in crystal

• Column V atoms in Si are called donor impurities.

• Column III in Si atoms are called acceptor impurities.

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Phosphorous – Donor Impurity in Si

Phosphorous (P) replaces a Si atom and forms four covalent bonds with other
Si atoms.
The fifth outer shell electron of P is easily freed to become a conduction band
electron, adding to the number of electrons available to conduct current.

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Boron – Acceptor Impurity in Si

Boron (B) replaces a Si atom and forms only three covalent bonds with other Si atoms.
The missing covalent bond is a hole, which can begin to move through the crystal when
a valence electron from another Si atom is taken to form the fourth B-Si bond.

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Electron and Hole Concentration
n = electron concentration
p = hole concentration
n  n p
2
i

n-type:

n = ND, the donor concentration p  ni2 / N D

p-type:
p = NA, the acceptor concentration
n  ni2 / N A

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Drift Currents

Electrons and hole flow in opposite directions when under the influence of an electric
field at different velocities.
The drift currents associated with the electrons and holes are in the same direction.

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 Drift Current Density - Electron
• An electric field E applied in one direction produces a force on the electrons in the
opposite direction, because of the electrons’ negative charge. The electrons acquire a
drift velocity vdn(in cm/s) which can be written as

where μn is a constant called the electron mobility and has units of cm2/V–s
for low-doped silicon, the value of μn is typically 1350 cm2/V–s
the negative sign indicates that the electron drift velocity is opposite to that of the applied electric field

• The electron drift produces a drift current density Jn (A/cm2)

where n is the electron concentration (#/cm3) and e, is the magnitude of the electronic charge

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 Drift Current Density - Hole
• An electric field E applied in one direction produces a force on the holes in the same direction, because of
the positive charge on the holes. The holes acquire a drift velocity vdp (in cm/s),

where μp is a constant called the hole mobility and has units of cm2/V–s
for low-doped silicon, the value of μp is typically 480 cm2/V–s
The positive sign indicates that the hole drift velocity is in the same direction as the applied electric field

• The hole drift produces a drift current density Jp (A/cm2)

where p is the hole concentration (#/cm3) and e, is the magnitude of the electronic charge

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Total drift current density

Ohm’s Law

where σ is the conductivity of the semiconductor in (Ohm–cm)−1 and where ρ = 1/σ is the resistivity of
the semiconductor in (Ohm–cm)

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Diffusion Currents

Both electrons and holes flow from high concentration to low.

The diffusion current associated with the electrons flows in the opposite direction
when compared to that of the holes.

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Diffusion Current - Hole
The diffusion current density due to the diffusion of holes can be written as

where e is the magnitude of the electronic charge, dp/dx is the gradient of the hole concentration, and
Dp is the hole diffusion coefficient

Note that since dp/dx is -ve hence the current will result in positive in the x direction

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 Diffusion Current - Electron
The diffusion current density due to the diffusion of electrons can be written as

where e is the magnitude of the electronic charge, dn/dx is the gradient of the electron concentration,
and Dn is the electron diffusion coefficient

Observe that a negative dn/dx will give rise to negative current – conventionally positive direction of current
is that of the flow of positive charge (i.e. opposite to flow of electron)

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Relationship between drift and diffusion
• The mobility values in the drift current equations and the diffusion
coefficient values in the diffusion current equations are not
independent quantities.
• They are related by the Einstein relation

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pn Junction A simplified 1-D sketch of a p-n junction (a) has
a doping profile (b).
The 3-D representation (c) shows the cross
sectional area of the junction.

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Built-in Potential

This movement of
carriers creates a
space charge or
depletion region
with an induced
electric field near
x = 0.
A potential
voltage, vbi, is
developed across
the junction.
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Built-in Potential (Cont’d)

Equation (1.16),

where VT ≡ kT/e, k = Boltzmann’s constant, T = absolute temperature,

e = the magnitude of the electronic charge, and Na and Nd are the net
acceptor and donor concentrations in the p- and n-regions, respectively.
The parameter VT is called the thermal voltage (VT = 0.026 V at room
temperature, T = 300 K)

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 Reverse-Biased pn Junction
Assume a positive voltage is applied to the n-region of a pn junction

• The direction of the electric field (applied electric field (EA) induced by VR and the direction of the
original space-charge electric field are in the same direction

• Resulting in a larger net electric field and a larger barrier between the p- and n-regions

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Junction Capacitance
• Increase in space-charge width, W, as VR increases
to VR+DVR.
• Creation of more fixed charges (-DQ and +DQ)
leads to junction capacitance Cj.

where Cjo is the junction capacitance at zero applied

voltage

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 Forward-Biased pn Junction

Applied voltage, vD, induces an electric field, EA, in the opposite direction as the original
space-charge electric field, resulting in a smaller net electric field and smaller barrier
between n and p regions.

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 Diffusion Current in Diode when Forward Biased

• As the majority carriers cross into the

opposite regions, they become minority
carriers in those regions, causing the
minority carrier concentrations to
increase.
• Resulting excess minority carrier
concentrations at the spacecharge region
edges
• These excess minority carriers diffuse
into the neutral n- and p-regions, where
they recombine with majority carriers,
thus establishing a steadystate condition

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 Ideal Current-Voltage Relationship

• An applied voltage results in a gradient in the minority

carrier concentrations, which in turn causes diffusion
currents:

• Where IS is the reverse-bias saturation current (for

silicon pn junctions, typical values of IS are in the range
of 10-18 to 10-12 A)
• VT is the thermal voltage, as defined in Equation (1.16),
and is approximately 0.026 V at room temperature
• n is usually called the emission coefficient or ideality
factor, and its value is in the range 1 ≤ n ≤ 2 (we’ll use
n=1 unless otherwise specified)

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Ideal I-V characteristics

• The p-n junction only conducts

significant current in the
forward-bias region.
• iD is an exponential function in
this region.
• Essentially no current flows in
reverse bias

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Ideal forward-biased I-V characteristics

log e
log( iD )  vD  log( I s )
nVT

The y intercept is equal to IS.

The slope is proportional to 1/n.
When n = 1, iD increased by ~ one
order of magnitude for every 60-mV
increase in vD.

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pn Junction Diode Symbol

Conventional current direction and polarity of voltage drop is shown

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Breakdown – Reverse-Biased Characteristics

• The magnitude of the breakdown

voltage (BV) is smaller for
heavily doped diodes as
compared to more lightly doped
diodes.
• Current through a diode
increases rapidly once
breakdown has occurred.

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 Transient Response

• Short reverse-going current pulse flows when the diode is switched from
forward bias to zero or reverse bias as the excess minority carriers are removed.
• It is composed of a storage time, ts, and a fall time, tf.

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