Theory of Semiconductors: UNIZOR.COM - Physics4Teens - Electromagnetism - Semiconductors
Channel: Zor Shekhtman on UNIZOR Education
Date: 2021-04-08

UNIZOR.COM - Physics through a Looking Glass of Mathematician


Notes to a video lecture on http://www.unizor.com

Theory of Semiconductors

Conductivity is the quality of a material to conduct electricity. Since electricity is carried by electrons, it's important how "free" electrons are in the material and how easy it is for negatively charged electrons to fly away from attraction of a positively charged nucleus of an atom.

Electrons can circle around a nucleus on certain stationary orbits (more precisely, narrow bands of orbits). So, to fly away from a nucleus, electron needs certain amount of energy to jump over a gap from one orbit to a higher one and, eventually, to fly away. If the distance between bands of an atom is minimal, electrons will jump over the gap between them easier and, potentially, the conductivity of this type of a material is better. If this gap is large, conductivity will be lower or none at all.

It happens that most metals have a very small gap between the bands of electron orbits, so electrons can relatively free jump from one band to a higher one and, eventually, fly away from their nuclei to other nuclei, thus making enough free electrons to facilitate the electric current. That's why metals are good conductors of electricity.

On another hand, diamonds have atoms with large gap between the bands of electron orbits, which makes it very difficult for electrons to escape the attraction of their nuclei. It's not impossible, but needs a lot of energy to excite them, enabling a long jump from one band to the next. This makes diamond and other elements with large gap between the bands insulators.

Finally, there is an "in-between" kind of elements with gaps between bands of electron orbits larger than in metals, but still not large enough, so relatively small energy supplied to electrons (heat, light etc.) will make them conductors, while without this extra energy they are insulators. These elements are semiconductors.

While excited electrons of any semiconductor decrease its electrical resistance, they don't produce electromotive force because the material as a whole remains electrically neutral.


To build a semiconductor that conducts electricity we will introduce two kinds of "impurities" into crystalline lattice of silicon.
One is an element with five valence electrons on the outer most orbit, like phosphorus (P). When it's embedded into a crystalline lattice of silicon, one electron on that outer orbit of phosphorus would remain not attached to any neighboring atom through a covalent bond.
This creates the possibility for this electron to start traveling, replacing other electrons and pushing them out, which are, in turn, push out others etc. 
Silicon with such addition of phosphorus is called n-type (letter n for negative).



Another type of "impurity" that we will add to silicon is an element with three valence electrons on the outer orbit, like boron (B).
When atoms of boron are embedded into a crystalline lattice of silicon, the overall structure of this combination looks like this

In this case the lattice has a deficiency of an electron that is traditionally called a "hole". Existence of a "hole" opens the opportunity for neighboring valence electrons to fill it, thus creating a "hole" in another spot. These "holes" behave like positively charged particles traveling inside silicon with added boron inasmuch as negatively charged electrons travel in silicon with added phosphorus.
Silicon with such addition of boron is called p-type (letter p for positive).

Now imagine two types of "impure" silicon, n-type and p-type, contacting each other. In practice, it's two flat pieces (like very thin squares) on top of each other.

As soon as contact between these two types of material is established, certain exchange between electrons of the n-type material and "holes" of the p-type takes place in the border region called p-n junction. Electrons and "holes" in this border region combine, thus reconstituting the lattice.
This process is called recombination.

The consequence of this process of recombination is that n-type material near the border loses electrons, thus becoming positively charged, while the p-type gains the electrons, that is loses "holes", thus becoming negatively charged.

Eventually, the diffusion between n-type and p-type materials stops because negative charge of the p-type sufficiently repels electrons from the n-type. There will be some equilibrium between both parts.