Semiconductor

A semiconductor is a material with an electrical conductance that is intermediate to those of an insulator and a conductor.

A semiconductor behaves as an insulator at very low temperature, and has an appreciable electrical conductance at room temperature. A semiconductor can be distinguished from a conductor by the fact that, at absolute zero, the uppermost filled electron energy band is fully filled in a semiconductor, but only partially filled in a conductor. The distinction between a semiconductor and an insulator is slightly more arbitrary. A semiconductor has a band gap which is small enough such that its conduction band is appreciably thermally populated with electrons at room temperature, whilst an insulator has a band gap which is too wide for there to be appreciable thermal electrons in its conduction band at room temperature.

For information on how semiconductors are used as electronic devices, see semiconductor device.

Fundamental semiconductor physics

Band structure of a semiconductor

Band structure of a semiconductor showing a full valence band and an empty conduction band. The Fermi level lies within the forbidden bandgap

In the parlance of solid-state physics, semiconductors (and insulators) are defined as solids in which at absolute zero (0 K), the uppermost band of occupied electron energy states, known as the valence band, is completely full. Or, to put it another way, the Fermi energy of the electrons lies within the forbidden bandgap. The Fermi energy, or Fermi level can be thought of as the energy up to which available electron states are occupied at absolute zero.

At room temperature, there is some smearing of the energy distribution of the electrons, such that a small, but not insignificant number have enough energy to cross the energy band gap into the conduction band. These electrons which have enough energy to be in the conduction band have broken free of the covalent bonds between neighbouring atoms in the solid, and are free to move around, and hence conduct charge. The covalent bonds from which these excited electrons have come now have missing electrons, or holes which are free to move around as well. (The holes themselves don't actually move, but a neighbouring electron can move to fill the hole, leaving a hole at the place it has just come from, and in this way the holes appear to move.)

It is an important distinction between conductors and semiconductors that, in semiconductors, movement of charge (current) is facilitated by both electrons and holes. Contrast this to a conductor where the Fermi level lies within the conduction band, such that the band is only half filled with electrons. In this case, only a small amount of energy is needed for the electrons to find other unoccupied states to move into, and hence for current to flow.

The ease with which electrons in a semiconductor can be excited from the valence band to the conduction band depends on the band gap between the bands, and it is the size of this energy bandgap that serves as an arbitrary dividing line between semiconductors and insulators. Materials with a bandgap energy of less than about 3 electron volts are generally considered semiconductors, while those with a greater bandgap energy are considered insulators..

The current-carrying electrons in the conduction band are known as "free electrons," although they are often simply called "electrons" if context allows this usage to be clear. The holes in the valence band behave very much like positively-charged counterparts of electrons, and they are usually treated as if they are real charged particles.

Doping of semiconductors

One of the main reasons that semiconductors are useful in electronics is that their electronic properties can be greatly altered in a controllable way by adding small amounts of impurities. These impurities are called dopants.

Heavily doping a semiconductor can increase its conductivity by a factor greater than a billion. In modern integrated circuits, for instance, heavily-doped polycrystalline silicon is often used as a replacement for metals.

Intrinsic and extrinsic semiconductors

An intrinsic semiconductor is one which is pure enough that impurities do not appreciably affect its electrical behavior. In this case, all carriers are created by thermally or optically excited electrons from the full valence band into the empty conduction band. Thus equal numbers of electrons and holes are present in an intrinsic semiconductor. Electrons and holes flow in opposite directions in an electric field, though they contribute to current in the same direction since they are oppositely charged. Hole current and electron current are not necessarily equal in an intrinsic semiconductor, however, because electrons and holes have different effective masses (crystalline analogues to free inertial masses).

The concentration of carriers is strongly dependent on the temperature. At low temperatures, the valence band is completely full, making the material an insulator (see electrical conduction for more information). Increasing the temperature leads to an increase in the number of carriers and a corresponding increase in conductivity. This principle is used in thermistors. This behavior contrasts sharply with that of most metals, which tend to become less conductive at higher temperatures due to increased phonon scattering.

An extrinsic semiconductor is one that has been doped with impurities to modify the number and type of free charge carriers.

N-type doping

The purpose of n-type doping is to produce an abundance of mobile or "carrier" electrons in the material. To help understand how n-type doping is accomplished, consider the case of silicon (Si). Si atoms have four valence electrons, each of which is covalently bonded with one of four adjacent Si atoms. If an atom with five valence electrons, such as those from group VA of the periodic table (eg. phosphorus (P), arsenic (As), or antimony (Sb)), is incorporated into the crystal lattice in place of a Si atom, then that atom will have four covalent bonds and one unbonded electron. This extra electron is only weakly bound to the atom and can easily be excited into the conduction band. At normal temperatures, virtually all such electrons are excited into the conduction band. Since excitation of these electrons does not result in the formation of a hole, the number of electrons in such a material far exceeds the number of holes. In this case the electrons are the majority carriers and the holes are the minority carriers. Because the five-electron atoms have an extra electron to "donate", they are called donor atoms. Note that each movable electron within the semiconductor is never far from an immobile positive dopant ion, and the n-doped material normally has a net electric charge of zero.

P-type doping

The purpose of p-type doping is to create an abundance of holes. In the case of silicon, a trivalent atom (such as boron) is substituted into the crystal lattice. The result is that one electron is missing from one of the four covalent bonds normal for the silicon lattice. Thus the dopant atom can accept an electron from a neighboring atoms' covalent bond to complete the fourth bond. Such dopants are called acceptors. The dopant atom accepts an electron, causing the loss of one bond from the neighboring atom and resulting in the formation of a "hole." Each hole is associated with a nearby negative-charged dopant ion, and the semiconductor remains electrically neutral as a whole. However, once each hole has wandered away into the lattice, one proton in the atom at the hole's location will be "exposed" and no longer cancelled by an electron. For this reason a hole behaves as a quantity of positive charge. When a sufficiently large number of acceptor atoms are added, the holes greatly outnumber the thermally-excited electrons. Thus, the holes are the majority carriers, while electrons are the minority carriers in p-type materials. Blue diamonds (Type IIb), which contain boron (B) impurities, are an example of a naturally occurring p-type semiconductor.

P-n junctions

A p-n junction may be created by doping adjacent regions of a semiconductor with p-type and n-type dopants. If a positive bias voltage is placed on the p-type side, the dominant positive carriers (holes) are pushed toward the junction. At the same time, the dominant negative carriers (electrons) in the n-type material are attracted toward the junction. Since there is an abundance of carriers at the junction, the junction behaves as a conductor, and the voltage placed across the junction produces a current. As the clouds of holes and electrons are forced to overlap, electrons fall into holes and become part of the population of immobile covalent bonds. However, if the bias polarity is reversed, the holes and electrons are pulled away from the junction. Since only very few new electron/hole pairs are created at the junction, the existing mobile carriers are swept away to leave a Depletion Zone; a region of relatively non-conducting silicon. The reversed bias voltage will produce only a very low current across the junction. The p-n junction is the basis of an electronic device called a diode, which allows electric charges to flow in only one direction. Similarly, a third semiconductor region can be doped n-type or p-type to form a three-terminal device, such as the bipolar junction transistor (which can be either p-n-p or n-p-n).

Purity and perfection of semiconductor materials

Semiconductors with predictable, reliable electronic properties are difficult to mass-produce because of the required chemical purity, and the perfection of the crystal structure, which are needed to make devices. Because the presence of impurities in very small proportions can have such big effects on the properties of the material, the level of chemical purity needed is extremely high. Techniques for achieving such high purity include zone refining, in which part of a solid crystal is melted. Impurities tend to concentrate in the melted region, leaving the solid material more pure. A high degree of crystalline perfection is also required, since faults in crystal structure such as dislocations, twins, and stacking faults, create energy levels in the band gap, interfering with the electronic properties of the material. Faults like these are a major cause of defective devices in production processes. The larger the crystal, the harder it is to achieve the necessary purity and perfection; current mass production processes use six-inch diameter crystals which are grown as cylinders and sliced into wafers.

See also

Encompassing fields

• Solid state physics
• Electronics
• Solid state chemistry
• Electrical engineering

Sub-fields

• Semiconductor device fabrication
• Semiconductor devices
  • Transistors
  • Diodes
  • Microprocessors
  • Thermistors
  • Solar cells
• Semiconductor materials
  • Aluminium arsenide
  • Aluminium gallium arsenide
  • Boron nitride
  • Diamond
  • Gallium arsenide
  • Gallium nitride
  • Germanium
  • Indium phosphide
  • Silicon
  • Silicon carbide
  • Silicon germanium
  • Silicon on insulator
• Wide bandgap semiconductors
• Spintronics
• Organic semiconductors
  • Melanin

Concepts

• Conduction band
• Effective mass
• Electron hole
• Exciton
• Quantum tunneling
• Valence band

External links

• Electrical Engineering Training Series (http://www.tpub.com/content/neets/14179/index.htm) A set of articles on Semiconductors and Transistors
• Semiconductor Technology (http://www.semiconductor-technology.com) Information on the Semiconductor Industry.
• NSM-Archive (http://www.ioffe.rssi.ru/SVA/NSM/Semicond/index.html) Physical Properties of Semiconductors (such as Si, GaAs and others), including band structure, mechanical, electrical, thermal and optical properies
• Semiconductor Concepts at Hyperphysics (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/solids/semcn.html), includes intrisic semiconductors, doping, junctures, band theorry, etc.
• Principles of Semiconductor Devices (http://ece-www.colorado.edu/~bart/book/book/)
• Britney Spears Guide to Semiconductor Physics (http://britneyspears.ac/lasers.htm)
• Semiconductor resource launch page (http://www.semi1source.com/)
• Semiconductor glossary (http://www.semiconductorglossary.com/)

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