Drift Current

Drift of Carriers in Electric Field

• To compute current through a device, we must know how Charge carriers will
undergo collisions with the lattice and the impurity atoms in the presence of electric
and/or magnetic fields.

• Mobility of the charge carriers moving through the lattice will get changed under the
E/ B field.

• These collision and scattering processes depend on temperature, which affects the
thermal motion of the lattice atoms and the velocity of the carriers.

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 Effects of Temperature and doping on Mobility
Two main scattering events affecting mobility: (i) Lattice scattering & (ii) Impurity scattering

Lattice Scattering:
 All lattice atoms vibrate due to
temperature and can scatter carriers due
to collisions.

 Collective vibrations are called phonons,

thus lattice scattering is also known as
phonon scattering.

 With  temperature, lattice vibrations

Impurity Scattering: increase, and the mean free time
 Scattering from crystal defects and ionized between collisions decreases 
impurities dominate at low temperatures. mobility decreases (typical dependence
~ T-3/2).
 Carriers moving with low velocity (at low
temperature) get scattered more easily by
ionized impurities causing a  in carrier
mobility with  temperature (~ T3/2).
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 Therefore, scattering probability is inversely proportional to the mean free time
and to mobility!

• Hence, the mobilities due to two or more scattering events add inversely:

𝟏 𝟏 𝟏
= +
𝝁 𝝁𝟏 𝝁𝟐

Thus, the mechanism causing the lowest mobility value dominates.

Effect of Doping
• Mobility also decreases with increasing doping, since the ionized impurities scatter
carriers more!

For e.g., n for intrinsic Si is 1350 cm2/(V-s) at 300 K

With a donor doping of 1017 /cm3 , n drops to 700 cm2/(V-s)

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Mobility and Conductivity
Random Thermal motion
• At RT, the thermal motion of an individual electron
may be visualized as random scattering from lattice
atoms, impurities, other electrons, and defects.

• No net motion of the group of n electrons/cm3 over

any period of time, since the scattering is random, and
there is no preferred direction of motion for the group
of electrons  no net current flow.
Under applied E Field
Ex
• Now, if an electric field Ex is applied in the x-
direction, each electron experiences a net force qEx
from the field.

• This will create a net motion of group in the x-

direction, even though the force may be insufficient to
appreciably alter the random path of an individual
electron.

Vx = -nEx Dr. Gargi Raina VIT Chennai

Drift of Carriers in Electric field
If an electric field ℰx is applied in the x-direction, each electron experiences a net force -
qℰx from the field.

• If px is the x-component of the total momentum of the group, then the force of
the field on the n electrons/cm3 is
𝐝𝐩𝐱
-nq𝐄𝐱 =
𝐝𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝

Note: this expression indicates a constant acceleration in the x-direction, which

realistically cannot happen.

• In steady state, this acceleration is just balanced by the deceleration due to the
collisions.

• Thus, while the steady field Ex does produce a net momentum p-x , for steady
state current flow, the net rate of change of momentum must be zero when
collisions are included.

• Note: the collision processes are totally random, thus, there is a constant
probability of collision at any time for each electron.
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 • Consider a group of N0 electrons at time t = 0, and define N(t) as the number of
electrons that have not undergone a collision by time t

Random thermal motion

of an electron in a solid

• The rate of decrease of N(t) at any time t is proportional to the number left
unscattered electrons at t, i.e.
where is the constant of proportionality

• The solution is an exponential function

and 𝒕 represents the mean time between scattering events, called the mean free time.
• The probability that any electron has a collision in time interval dt is dt/ 𝑡 , thus, the
differential change in momentum due to collisions in time dt is

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• Thus, the rate of change of due to the decelerating effect of collisions is

• For steady state, the sum of acceleration and deceleration effects must be zero,
thus,

• The average momentum per electron (averaged over the entire group of electrons)
is

• Thus, as expected for steady state, the electrons would have on the average
constant net velocity in the -x-direction

•
This speed is referred to as the drift speed, and, in general, it is usually much smaller
than the random speed due to thermal motion

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• The current density resulting from this drift

• This is the familiar Ohm's law with being the conductivity of the sample

Conductivity can also be written as

with the electron mobility given by

(in ), and it describes the ease with which electrons drift in the material.

• The mobility can also be expressed as the average drift velocity per unit electric field,

thus mobility with the negative sign denoting a positive value for mobility since electrons
drift opposite to the direction of the electric field.

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• The total current density can be given by

when both electrons and holes contribute to the current conduction

• On the other hand, for predominantly n-type or p-type samples, respectively the first
or the second term of the above equation dominates.

Note: both electron and hole drift currents are in the same direction, since holes (with
positive charges) move along the direction of the electric field, and electrons (with
negative charges) drift opposite to the direction of the electric field.

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Effective Mass

• Motion of electrons in a lattice is not the same as that for a free electron due
to the interaction with the periodic potential of the lattice.

• To still be able to treat these particles as "free", the rest mass ‘m0’of electron
has to be changed to Effective Mass ‘m*’.

• The calculation of effective mass takes into account the shape of the energy
bands in three-dimensional k-space, taking appropriate averages over the
various energy bands.

• The effective mass of an electron in a band with a given (E, k) relation is

given by

𝟐
𝒉/(𝟐𝝅)
𝒎∗ = 𝟐
𝒅 𝑬/𝒅𝒌𝟐
Note: In general, the effective mass is a tensor quantity, however, for parabolic
bands, it is a constant.
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• Thus, the effective mass is an inverse function of the
curvature of the E-k diagram:

(i) Weak curvature (Broad Band) gives large mass, and

strong curvature (Narrow band) gives small mass.

(ii) Curvature is positive at the conduction band minima &

negative at the valence band maxima.

(iii) Electrons near the top of the valence band have

negative effective mass.

• Thus Valence band electrons with negative charge and negative mass move in an
electric field in the same direction as holes with positive charge and positive mass.

• Thus, the charge transport in the valence band can be fully accounted for by
considering hole motion alone.
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• Since GaAs has a strong curvature of the E-k diagram at the bottom of the conduction
band, the electron effective mass in GaAs is very small  the electron mobility in GaAs
is very high since is inversely proportional to .

• The other parameter in the mobility expression, i.e., 𝒕 (the mean free time between
collisions) is a function of temperature and the impurity concentration in the
semiconductor.

• For a uniformly doped semiconductor bar of length L, width w, and thickness t, the
Resistance R of the bar can be given by

where  is the resistivity.

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