SEMICONDUCTORS

and CONDUCTION
MECHANISMS
By: Dinesh Bishwakarma
Asst. Prof. KU (School of Engineering)
 Why Semiconductors?
• SEMICONDUCTORS: They are here, there, and everywhere
• Computers, palm pilots, Silicon (Si) MOSFETs, ICs, CMOS
laptops, anything “intelligent”
• Cell phones, pagers Si ICs, GaAs FETs, BJTs
• CD players AlGaAs and InGaP laser diodes, Si photodiodes
• TV remotes, mobile terminals Light emitting diodes (LEDs)
• Satellite dishes InGaAs MMICs (Monolithic Microwave ICs)
• Fiber networks InGaAsP laser diodes, pin photodiodes
• Traffic signals, car GaN LEDs (green, blue)
taillights InGaAsP LEDs (red, amber)
• Air bags Si MEMs, Si ICs
• and, they are important, especially to Elec.Eng.& Computer
Sciences
 What are semiconductors?
• A semiconductor is a materials which is neither a good conductor of
electricity nor a good insulator.
• Conductivity lies between conductor and insulator.

Resistivity

Insulator Semiconductor Conductor

107 𝑡𝑜 108 𝑜ℎ𝑚 − 𝑚 10−5 𝑡𝑜 10−4 𝑜ℎ𝑚 − 𝑚 10−8 𝑡𝑜 10−6 ohm-m

Semiconducting Materials
 Examples of Semiconductor Materials
1. Very Expensive
Carbon C 6 2. Band Gap Large: 6eV
3. Difficult to produce without high contamination
1. Cheap
Silicon Si 14 2. Ultra High Purity
3. Oxide is amazingly perfect for IC applications
1. High Mobility
Germanium Ge 32 2. High Purity Material
3. Oxide is porous to water/hydrogen (problematic)

1. Only “White Tin” is semiconductor

Tin Sn 50
2. Converts to metallic form under moderate heat

1. Only “White Lead” is semiconductor

Lead Pb 82
2. Converts to metallic form under moderate heat
Crystal Structure of
Si and Ge:
Diamond Cubic
Structure
 Band Structure in Si
• Silicon atom has 14 electrons distributed in
various energy levels
• The inner shells of Si atoms are not affected
when other Si atoms come together.
• 3s and 3p shells are farther away from the
nucleus
• When two Si atoms approach, 3s and 3p
electrons strongly interact with each other.
• So, to study band formation we consider 3s and
3p shells.
 Band Structure in Si
• Why a Si bonds with other 4 Si atoms ?
• Since 3s orbital is full and 3p has two electrons
it should form covalent bond with other 2 Si
atoms.
• But this is not case, in reality, 3s and 3p orbitals
are very close to each other.
• When 5 Si atoms approach each other, 4 orbitals
3s, 3px,3py and 3pz mix to form new 4 hybrid
orbitals directed in tetrahedral structure.
• This process is called sp3 hybridization since
one s and 3 p orbitals mix.
Band Structure in Si
 Band Structure in Si
• The four sp3 hybrid orbitals each have one
electron, so they are half occupied.
• Therefore, 4 Si atoms can have their hybrid
orbitals overlap to form bonds with one Si atom.
Thus, one Si atom bonds with four other Si
atoms in tetra tetrahedral directions.
• Hybrid orbital can overlap with neighboring Si atom in two ways to
form molecular orbitals.
• They can add in phase and produce a bonding orbital 𝜓𝐵 having
energy 𝐸𝐵 .
• They can add in out of phase and produce an antibonding orbital 𝜓𝐴
having energy 𝐸𝐴 .
• The above bonding and anti-bonding orbitals are shown in figure-c .
• Each Si-Si bond thus have two paired electrons in a bonding molecular
orbital.
• Since in a solid there are N(≈ 5 × 1022 𝑐𝑚−3 ) Si-atoms, there are
nearly as many such 𝜓𝐵 bonds.
• The interaction between Si-Si bond leads to splitting of 𝐸𝐵 energy
levels to N levels, thereby forming an energy band labeled valence
band (VB).
• Since 𝐸𝐵 is full, so the VB is also full. VB formation is shown in
figure c and d .
• Also, interaction between the number of 𝜓𝐴 orbitals results in the
splitting of the energy level 𝐸𝐴 to N levels and formation of an energy
band that is completely empty and separated from the full valence
band by a definite energy gap 𝐸𝑔 . This band is called conduction
band (CB).
• CB formation is shown in the figure c and d.
• VB and CB are separated by an energy gap, or a band gap , 𝐸𝑔 , in
which there are no allowed electron energy level.
Band Structure in Si
• All materials which have bonds characterized by electron sharing
(covalent bond) have in common the above mention hybrid orbitals.
• Only differs in the magnitude of the gap energy, 𝐸𝑔 between the
conduction band and the valence band.
• The gap energy is slightly temperature dependent according to the
empirical equation

𝑒𝑉
where, 𝐸𝑔𝑜 is the band gap energy at T = 0K , 𝜉 ≈ 5 × 10−4 and 𝜃𝐷 is the
𝐾
Debye temperature.
• 𝐸𝑔 becomes smaller with increasing temperature.
 Classification of Semiconductors
• The effective band gaps and conductivity of the semiconducting
materials can be modified by the introduction of impurities.
• The process of adding impurities in semiconductors in a precisely
controlled manner is called doping.
• Depending on the nature of impurities added, the semiconductors are
classified as follows:
Intrinsic
Semiconductors
Semiconductors P-type
Extrinsic
Semiconductors
N-type
 Intrinsic Semiconductors
• The intrinsic semiconductors such as pure Ge and Si are undoped
semiconductors.
• The electrical conductivity of this type of semiconductors is solely
determined by thermally generated carriers.
 Si and Ge are tetravalent elements – each atom of Si (Ge) has 4 valence electrons in
crystal matrix

At T=0, all electrons are bound in For T> 0 thermal fluctuations can
covalent bonds break electrons free creating
electron-hole pairs
no carriers available for conduction. Both can move throughout the lattice
and therefore, conduct current.
 Electrons and Holes
For T>0
some electrons in the valence band receive
enough thermal energy to be excited across
the band gap to the conduction band.
The result is a material with some electrons
in an otherwise empty conduction band
and some unoccupied states in an
otherwise filled valence band.
An empty state in the valence band is
Electron-hole pairs in a semiconductor.
referred to as a hole.
The bottom of the conduction band
Electron(conduction band) and
denotes as Ec and the top of the valence
band denotes as Ev. holes(valence band) behaves as free carrier
and increase the conductivity of the
material.
Electron and Holes
Electron and Holes
Electron and Holes
• A free electron moving randomly in a
semiconductor may encounter a hole and
combine with it to reconstruct the broken
covalent bond. Thus, the electron-hole (EHP) is
destroyed, and the free electron is converted
into the bound electron.
• This process is called electron-hole
recombination.
 Intrinsic Semiconductors
• The electron moves mainly under the influence of the applied filed
while holes move under the combined effect of the applied electric
field and the ionic field of the lattice.
• Thus, the properties such as effective mass, mobility, etc. of a hole are
quite different(hole has larger effective mass and lower mobility.
• The charge of hole is equal and opposite to that of an electron.
• The number of electrons, 𝑛𝑖 , in the conduction band is always equal
to the number of holes, 𝑝𝑖 , in the valence band.
𝑖. 𝑒. 𝑛𝑖 = 𝑝𝑖 .
• Either of these (𝑛𝑖 or 𝑝𝑖 ) is called the intrinsic carrier concentration.
 Extrinsic Semiconductor
• Intrinsic semiconductors are not of much use due to their small and
fixed conductivity.
• The conductivity of semiconductor can be considerably improved by
adding a small amount of impurity.
• Extrinsic semiconductors are semiconductors that are doped with
specific impurities.
• Doping agents are called dopants.
• The impurity atoms of group (V) are known as donor or n-type and
give rise to n-type semiconductor.
• The impurity atoms of group(III) are known as acceptor or p-type and
give rise to p-type semiconductor.
 n-Type doping
• What happens when small amount of pentavalent ( valency of 5) element
from Group V in the Periodic Table, such as As, P, Sb, are introduced into
a pure Si crystal ?
• Let’s say As.
• We only add 1ppm ( 1 As atom for 1 million Si atom)
• Valence electrons
• As = 5
• Si = 4
• 1 As atom bonds with 4 Si atom and 1 electron left unbonded.
 n-Type
• It cannot find a bond to go into, so it is
left orbiting around the As atom.
• This electron must be pushed to CB but
How much energy is required? Binding
energy is given by:

1
• For silicon, 𝜖𝑟 = 11.9 and 𝑚𝑒∗ ≈ 𝑚𝑒
3
• This gives 0.0032 eV. Which is
equivalent to thermal energy of atomic
vibrations at room temperature ( ≈
3𝑘𝑇 ~0.07𝑒𝑉
 n-Type
• Thus the 5th valence As electron can be readily freed by thermal
vibrations of the Si lattice.
• The electron will be ‘free’ in semiconductor or in other words in CB.
 n-Type
• This process creates free electrons but immobile As+ ions, as shown in
the energy band diagram of an n-type semiconductor in Figure 5.10.
• Because the As atom donates an electron into the CB, it is called a
donor atom.
• The donor levels are the localized energy states of electron (here 5th
electron) bound to donor ions.
• The depth of donor level below the conduction band is ≈ 0.03𝑒𝑉 ሺ ≅
𝐼𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑧𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝐴𝑠ሻ
• In n-type semiconductors electrons are called majority carriers and
the holes are called minority carriers.
 n-Type
• If the concentration of acceptor impurities 𝑁𝑑 in the crystal is much
greater than the intrinsic concentration 𝑛𝑖 , then at room temperature all
the acceptors would have been ionized and thus 𝑛 ≈ 𝑁𝑑 .
• The electron concentration is then determined by the mass action
law, 𝑝 = 𝑛𝑖2 /𝑁𝑑 , which is much smaller than 𝑛.
 p-Type
• What happens when small amount of trivalent ( valency of 3) element from
Group III in the Periodic Table, such as B, Al, Ga or are introduced into a
pure Si crystal ?
• Let’s say B.
• Valence electrons We only add 1ppm ( 1 B atom for 1 million Si atom)
• B=3
• Si = 4
• Because B has only three valence electrons, when it shares them with four
neighbouring Si atoms, one of the bonds has a missing electron, which of
course is a hole.
• A nearby electron can tunnel into this hole and displace the hole further
away from the boron atom.
• As the hole moves away, it gets attracted by the negative charge left behind
on the boron atom and therefore takes an orbit around the B− ion, as shown
in Figure 5.11b.
 p-Type
• The binding energy of this hole to the B− ion can be calculated using
the hydrogenic atom analogy as in the n-type Si case.
• This binding energy turns out to be very small, ∼0.05 eV, so at room
temperature the thermal vibrations of the lattice can free the hole away
from the B− site.
• The escape of the hole from the B− site involves the B atom accepting
an electron from a neighbouring Si–Si bond (from the VB).
• The B atom introduced into the Si crystal therefore acts as an electron
acceptor and, because of this, it is called an acceptor impurity.
Acceptor Impurities – Hole propagation

Hole is propagating through the silicon.

Acceptor Impurities – Hole propagation

e
Hole

Hole is propagating through the silicon.

Acceptor Impurities – Hole propagation

Hole

Hole is propagating through the silicon.

Acceptor Impurities – Hole propagation

Hole is propagating through the silicon.

 p-Type
• The electron accepted by the B atom comes from a nearby bond.
• On the energy band diagram, an electron leaves the VB and gets
accepted by a B atom, which becomes negatively charged.
• This process leaves a hole in the VB that is free to wander away.
• The acceptor levels are the localized energy states of holes bound to
acceptor ions.
• The acceptor levels are located at about 0.05 eV above the top of the
balance band.
• In p-type semiconductor holes are the majority charge carriers and the
electrons are the minority charge carriers.
 p-Type
• If the concentration of acceptor impurities 𝑁𝑎 in the crystal is much
greater than the intrinsic concentration 𝑛𝑖 , then at room temperature all
the acceptors would have been ionized and thus 𝑝 ≈ 𝑁𝑎 .
• The electron concentration is then determined by the mass action law,
𝑛 = 𝑛𝑖2 /𝑁𝑎 , which is much smaller than 𝑝.