ELECTRONIC MATERIALS L T P J C

AND DEVICES 3 0 0 0 3

Dr. M. Saranya Nair

School of Electronics Engineering
VIT-Chennai Campus
E-mail : [email protected]

MODULE 3

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

 ELECTRONIC MATERIALS
AND DEVICES
MODULE 3
Carrier Transport Mechanism
Charge carriers in semiconductors – Drift and Diffusion of carriers –
Mobility – Generation, Recombination and injection of carriers – Carrier
transport equations – Excess carrier lifetime.

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

 Carrier Transport Phenomena in Semiconductors
• The process by which the charged particles move is called transport.
• Two basic transport mechanisms in a semiconductor crystal:

• Drift - the movement of charge due to electric fields, and

• Diffusion - the flow of charge due to density gradients.
• The carrier transport phenomena are the foundation for finally
determining the current–voltage characteristics of semiconductor
devices.

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

 CARRIER DRIFT
• An electric field applied to a semiconductor will produce a force on electrons / holes
so that they will experience a net acceleration and net movement. This net
movement of charge due to an electric field is called drift. The net drift of charge
gives rise to a drift current.
• If we have a positive volume charge density moving at an average drift velocity vd,
the drift current density is given by
If the volume charge density is due to positively charged holes,
then

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

 CARRIER DRIFT
If the volume charge density is due to electrons, then

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

 CARRIER DRIFT
• The conventional drift current due to electrons is also in the same direction as the applied electric
field even though the electron movement is in the opposite direction.

• Electron and hole mobilities are also functions of temperature and doping concentrations.

Since both electrons and holes contribute to the drift current, the total drift current density is the
sum of the individual electron and hole drift current densities

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

 Conductivity

If we have a bar of semiconductor material as shown in Figure with a voltage applied that produces a current I,
then we can write J = I /A and E = V /L

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

 CARRIER DIFFUSION
• There is a second mechanism, in addition to drift, that can induce a current
in a semiconductor.
• Diffusion is the process whereby particles flow from a region of high
concentration toward a region of low concentration.
• If the particles were electrically charged, the net flow of charge would result
in a diffusion current.

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

 Diffusion Current Density
• The diffusion of electrons from a region of high concentration to a region
of low concentration produces a flux of electrons flowing in the negative x
direction for this example. Since electrons have a negative charge, the
conventional current direction is in the positive x direction.
Dn is called the electron diffusion coefficient, has units of cm2/s, and is a positive
quantity.

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

• The diffusion of holes, from a region of high concentration to a region of low concentration,
produces a flux of holes in the negative x direction.
• Since holes are positively charged particles, the conventional diffusion current density is also in the
negative x direction.

The diffusion coefficient and mobility are not independent

parameters. The relation between the mobility and diffusion
coefficient, is known as the Einstein relation.

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

Calculate the diffusion current density given a density gradient. Assume that, in an n-type
gallium arsenide semiconductor at T = 300 K, the electron concentration varies linearly from
1 x 1018 to 7 x 1017 cm-3 over a distance of 0.10 cm. Calculate the diffusion current density if the
electron diffusion coefficient is Dn = 225 cm2/s.

108 A /cm2
ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR
Calculate the drift current density in a semiconductor for a given electric field. Consider a
gallium arsenide sample at T = 300 K with doping concentrations of Na = 0 and Nd = 1016 /cm3.
Assume electron and hole mobilities given as 8500 & 400 (cm2/V-s). Calculate the drift current
density if the applied electric field is E = 10 V/cm.

136 A /cm2
ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR
 Mobility Effects
• Mobility, relates the average drift velocity of a carrier to the electric field.
• Electron and hole mobilities are important semiconductor parameters in the
characterization of carrier drift.
• It describes how well a particle will move due to an electric field. The unit of mobility
is usually expressed in terms of cm2 /V-s.
• The equation of motion of a positively charged hole in the presence of an electric
field is

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

If we assume that the effective mass and electric field are constants,

• The charged particles in a semiconductor are involved in collisions which alter the velocity
characteristics of the particle.
• As the hole accelerates in a crystal due to the electric field, the velocity increases. When the
charged particle collides with an atom in the crystal, the particle loses most, or all, of its
energy. The particle will again begin to accelerate and gain energy until it is again involved in a
scattering process. This continues over and over again. Throughout this process, the particle
will gain an average drift velocity which is directly proportional to the electric field. There is a
mean time between collisions which may be denoted by cp.

Typical random behavior of a hole in a semiconductor (a) without an

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR electric field and (b) with an electric field.
• There are two collision or scattering mechanisms that dominate in a semiconductor
and affect the carrier mobility: phonon or lattice scattering, and ionized impurity
scattering.
• The atoms in a semiconductor crystal have a certain amount of thermal energy at
temperatures above absolute zero that causes the atoms to randomly vibrate about
their lattice position within the crystal. The lattice / thermal vibrations cause a
disruption of the potential function, resulting in an interaction between the electrons
or holes and the vibrating lattice atoms. This lattice scattering is also referred to as
phonon scattering.

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

• Since lattice scattering is related to the thermal motion of atoms, the rate at which the scattering occurs is
a function of temperature. Mobility that is due to lattice scattering decreases as the temperature increases.
• The second interaction mechanism affecting carrier mobility is called ionized impurity scattering. Impurity
atoms are added to the semiconductor to control or alter its characteristics. These impurities are ionized
at room temperature so that a coulomb interaction exists between the electrons or holes and the ionized
impurities. This coulomb interaction alters the velocity characteristics of the charge carrier.
• If temperature increases, the random thermal velocity of a carrier increases, reducing the time the carrier
spends in the vicinity of the ionized impurity center. The less time spent in the vicinity of a coulomb
force, the smaller the scattering effect. If the number of ionized impurity centers increases, then the
probability of a carrier encountering an ionized impurity center increases, implying a smaller value of I.

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

 CARRIER GENERATION AND RECOMBINATION

Generation is the process whereby electrons and holes are created, and recombination is the process
whereby electrons and holes are annihilated.

Any deviation from thermal equilibrium will tend to change the electron and hole concentrations in
a semiconductor.

A sudden increase in temperature, for example, will increase the rate at which electrons and holes
are thermally generated so that their concentrations will change with time until new equilibrium
values are reached.

An external excitation, such as light (a flux of photons), can also generate electrons and holes,
creating a non equilibrium condition.

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

 The Semiconductor in Equilibrium
• In thermal equilibrium, these concentrations are
independent of time. However, electrons are continually
being thermally excited from the valence band into the
conduction band by the random nature of the thermal
process. At the same time, electrons moving randomly
through the crystal in the conduction band may come in
close proximity to holes and “fall” into the empty states in
the valence band. This recombination process annihilates
both the electron and hole.
• Since the net carrier concentrations are independent of
time in thermal equilibrium, the rate at which electrons and
holes are generated and the rate at which they recombine
must be equal.

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR
 Excess Carrier Generation and
Recombination
• Electrons in the valence band may be excited into the conduction band when, for example, high-
energy photons are incident on a semiconductor.
• When this happens, not only is an electron created in the conduction band, but a hole is created in
the valence band; thus, an electron–hole pair is generated. The additional electrons and holes
created are called excess electrons and excess holes.

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

• Low-level injection puts limits on the magnitude of the excess carrier concentration compared with
the thermal-equilibrium carrier concentrations.
• In an extrinsic n-type material, we generally have n0 > p0 and, in an extrinsic p-type material, we
generally have p0 > n0.

• Low-level injection means that the excess carrier concentration is much less than the thermal-
equilibrium majority carrier concentration.

• Conversely, high-level injection occurs when the excess carrier concentration becomes comparable
to or greater than the thermal-equilibrium majority carrier concentrations.

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR
 where  is a constant for the low-level injection, describes the decay of excess minority carrier
electrons so that, is often referred to as the excess minority carrier lifetime

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR
 GRADED IMPURITY DISTRIBUTION
Consider a semiconductor that is non uniformly doped with donor impurity atoms.
There will be a diffusion of majority carrier electrons from the region of high concentration to the region of low
concentration.
The flow of negative electrons leaves behind positively charged donor ions. The separation of positive and negative
charge induces an electric field that is in a direction to oppose the diffusion process.

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

 Module III
Mathematical Relations for Problems

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES DR.M.SARANYA NAIR