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Chap 3.3
Physics of semiconductors
Department of Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Faculty of Engineering
Omar Al- Mukhtar University

Phonon
• Phonons are especially relevant in the behavior of heat and sound
in crystals.
• In a crystal, the atoms are neatly arranged in a uniform, repeating
structure; when heated, the atoms can oscillate at specific
frequencies.
• The bonds between the individual atoms in a crystal behave
essentially like springs.
• When one of the atoms gets pushed or pulled, it sets off a wave (or
phonon) travelling through the crystal, just as sitting down on one
edge of a trampoline can set off vibrations through the entire
surface.

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Excitons
• An exciton is a bound state of an electron and an a hole in an
insulator or semiconductor, and such is a Coulomb-correlated
electron-hole pair.

• Basically, the electron or hole in the exciton are not free anymore
because they are bounded to each other.

• Excitons, which are considered as quasi particles, are neutral and the
movement of an exciton does not result in charge transport.

• Excitons can be generated by photons with energies very close

to bandgap energy of semiconductors:

• a photon enters a semiconductor, exciting an electron from the valence

band into the conduction band.

• The generated electron-hole pair is attracted by the Coulomb force.

• The exciton results from the binding of the electron with its hole; as a
result, the exciton has slightly less energy than the unbound electron
and hole in semiconductors.

• In organic materials, however, the bound energy might be large

and excitons may play important role in carrier transport
mechanism.

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Polarons
• A quasiparticle that may play a role in organic materials originate from
the interaction between the electrons and lattice, i.e. electron-phonon
interaction.
• A polaron can be viewed as a self trapped-carrier, a carrier trapped in
a potential well created by its own distortion of the lattice.

(Quasiparticle: that interacts with elementary particles, but does not exist as a free
particle)

Band energy diagram – device application

• For electronic device applications, usually only the minimum of the
conduction band, and the maximum of the valence band are employed
for representing the band diagram of the material. This is so because
the majority of the free electrons have the energies very close to EC
and the majority of free holes have the energies very close to the EV.

Vacuum level
Vacuum level

EC
EF EF

EV
x Real space (r) Application of band-energy
not k-space diagram for analysis of a
Band energy diagram for a MOS structure
Band energy
diagram for a metal semiconductor or an
Metal

oxide

insulator Semiconductor

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x

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Optical absorption in solids

• There are various processes involved in absorption of electromagnetic waves (including
light) in solids.
1. Free carrier absorption: This arises from electron (or hole) transitions within a band
from one state to another state (intraband transitions: both bands are either in VB or in
CB). This kind of absorption is important in metals, in highly doped semiconductors
and also in transparent conductive oxides.
2. Phonon absorption: This normally occurs in the infrared region of the spectrum. This
means energy coupling from the electromagnetic wave to the lattice of solids. This
process occurs in both semiconductors and amorphous solids.
3. Electron interband transition: In this process an electron from a state in a valence
band moves (or gets excited) into a state in the conduction band.
4. Process 4 which is a subcategory of process 3 represents an interband transition, in
which the an exciton is generated.
5. A loss in some amorphous materials which arises from hopping of electrons from
localized states in the bandgap to other localized states.
• Among all of these transitions, only process 3 is desirable for PV application. In organic
semiconductors process 4 also is of interest for PV application.

Interband transitions in direct bandgap semiconductors

• Electrons occupy different energy levels at different
momentum values.
– The relationship between the electron energy and electron E
momentum is given by the E-K diagram.
– In a direct bandgap materials the minimum of the conduction
band (anti-bonding states) and the maximum of the valence
band (bonding states) occur at the same k-values.
Eg
• Momentum of a photon is: Eph>Eg
p=h/λ=ћk

where λ is the wavelength of the photon (λ = 540 nm for green

light) and momentum of electrons in crystal structure is between
0 and p=h/a where a is the lattice constant (a=0.54 nm for Si). k

– average momentum of electrons (p=h/0.54) is much larger than

average momentum of photons (p=h/540).

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Interband optical absorption

• Creation of electron-hole pairs through absorption of sunlight is
fundamental for PV applications.
– interband absorption is also called fundamental absorption.
• Interband transitions involve photons, electrons, and phonons.
– Energy and momentum conservations are fundamental physics
rules that must be satisfied in all transitions.
– Total energy and momentum of involved particles before and after
interband transitions must be equal.
– Momentum conservation rule in direct and indirect bandgap
materials results in two different absorption mechanisms:
• Direct transition in direct bandgap materials
• Phonon assisted transitions in indirect bandgap materials

• Direct transition of electrons from valence band to the conduction

band by a photon does not change the momentum of the electrons.
• This transition only depends on photon energy and density of available
states for the direct transitions.
• These transitions are spontaneous and happen at femtosecond regime.
• Momentum conservation: electron and hole momentum are equal
Energy conservation rule: photon energy drives the interband
transition plus the kinetic energy of the resulting electron and
hole.
p2 p2
E Pht = Eg + +
2mn* 2m*p
p 2 æç 1 1 ö÷
E Pht - E g = +
2 çè mn* m*p ÷ø

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Interband transitions in indirect bandgap semiconductors

• In an indirect bandgap material the minimum
of the conduction band (anti-bonding states)
and maximum of the valence band (bonding Process 1: phonon emission
states) DO NOT occur at the same k-values
(momentum values) (kV ǂ kC).
E Process 2: phonon absorption

• Since the momentum of photons is much

smaller than the momentum of most of Eph>Eg 1
electrons in semiconductor systems,
momentum conservation for intraband Eg 2
transition requires a third particle to balance Eph< Eg
the momentum difference of the electron.

• Phonons (quanta of lattice vibration) are quasi

particles which can help the interband
transition by compensating the momentum
difference between resulting electron and kV kC k
hole.

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• Momentum conservation: phonon momentum= electron momentum – hole

momentum
• Energy conservation:
Process 1: photon energy - phonon energy= bandgap energy + kinetic energy of electron
and hole.
Process 2: photon energy + phonon energy= bandgap energy + kinetic energy of electron
and hole.

p2 æ 1 1 ö
EPht - EPhn = Eg + ç + ÷ phonon emission
2 çè mn* m*p ÷ø

p2 æ 1 1 ö
EPht + EPhn = Eg + çç * + * ÷÷ phonon absorption
2 è mn m p ø

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Absorption coefficient
• The absorption of light wave in solids is commonly d
characterized by absorption coefficient (α) with a
dimension of cm-1.
I0(λ) Iout=I0 exp[-α(λ)d]
– α is always a function of photon wavelength (or I(x, λ)
energy).
– Beer-Lambert law:
x
I(x,λ)=I0 exp[-α(λ)x] ; I: light intensity
ϕ(x+Δx,λ)
ϕ(x,λ)= ϕ0 exp[-α(λ)x]; Φ: photon flux ϕ(x,λ)

• The penetration depth of a monochromatic light in a Δx

material can be approximated by 1/α.

– The light intensity at depth of 1/α reaches 1/e times
of the original value.

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Solar cell operation questions

• Are solar cells made from intrinsic materials or
doped materials?
• Do solar cells operate under equilibrium,
reverse or forward biased condition?
• Are solar cells a majority carrier device or
minority carrier device?

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Solar cells: forward bias & minority carrier devices

• Solar cells are:

– p-n junctions
– Minority carrier
devices
– Voltage is not
directly applied
• Photocurrent
produces a voltage
drop across the
resistive load, which
forward biases the pn
junction.

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Which one of the following is the most

significant loss in solar cells?

A. Optical loss
B. Contact loss
C. Thermalization loss
D. Recombination loss
E. Junction loss
F. Resistive loss

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Loss mechanisms in solar cells

• Optical loss (~50% loss in Si solar cells):

– Absorption loss: photons which are not absorbed in the PV material

(normally low energy photons)
– Reflection loss: photons which reflect back from the surface of solar cell.

• Thermal loss:
– Thermallization loss (30%): thermalization of excited carriers to the edge of the
bandgap.

• Recombination loss (a little bit): recombination of photogenerated carriers in the

semiconductor and in the contacts.

• Resistive loss (a little bit): resistive losses in series and shunt resistances.

• Contact loss (a little bit of contact loss): the free carries must finally thermallize to
the Fermi-level of the contact metal.

• Junction loss (a little bit of junction loss).

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