Semiconductor Devices

EEE-815
 Different Carrier Transport Model

Q. Discuss elaborately about Drift Motion?

Ans. Drift, by definition, is charged-particle motion in response to an applied electric
field. On a microscopic scale the drifting motion within semiconductors can be
described as follows: When an electric field is applied across a semiconductor as
visualized in Fig. 1.0(a), the force acting on the carriers tends to accelerate the +q
charged holes in the direction of the electric field and the — q charged electrons in
the direction opposite to the electric field.

Fig 1.0(a): Motion of carriers within a biased semiconductor bar.

The carrier acceleration is frequently interrupted, however, by scattering events
collisions between the carriers and ionized impurity atoms, thermally agitated lattice
atoms, or other scattering centers. The result, pictured in Fig.1.0(b), is a net carrier
motion along the direction of the electric field, but in a disjointed fashion involving
repeated periods of acceleration and subsequent decelerating collisions.

Fig 1.0(b): Drifting hole on a microscopic or atomic scale.

Averaging over all electrons or holes in a semiconductor bar at any given time, we
find that the resultant motion of each carrier type can be described in terms of a drift
velocity, Vd . In other words, on a macroscopic scale, drift can usually be visualized
(see Fig. 1(c)) as nothing more than all carriers of a given type moving along at a
constant velocity in a direction parallel or antiparallel to the applied electric field.
 Fig 1.0(c): Carrier drift on a macroscopic scale.

Q. Discuss types of Scattering takes place inside a Semiconductor?

Ans.
Different types of scattering events that can take place inside a semiconductor.
These include:
(i) Phonon (lattice) scattering,
(ii) Ionized impurity scattering,
(iii) Scattering by neutral impurity atoms and defects
(iv) Carrier-carrier scattering, and
(v) Piezoelectric scattering.

Q. What is Ballistic Transport/ Velocity Overshoot?

Ans.
Ballistic Transport is the motion of electrons in ultra-small (highly confined) regions
in semiconductor structures at very high electric field with velocities much higher
than their equilibrium thermal velocity; ballistic electrons are not subjected to
scattering, and hence, they can move with ultra-high velocity; ballistic transport is
determined by electronic structure of semiconductor, and is different for different
semiconductors; allows ultra-fast devices.

Q. Derive the equation for Diffusion Current?

Ans.
Consider the p-type semiconductor bar of cross-sectional area A and the steady state
hole concentration gradient shown respectively in Fig. 3.0(a) and (b). Under the
simplifying assumptions we have made, if t is arbitrarily set equal to zero at the
instant all of the carrier’s scatter, it follows that half of the holes in a volume IA on
either side of x = 0 will be moving in the proper direction so as to cross the x = 0
plane prior to the next scattering event at t = l/v̅. Thus, we can write,
Fig 3.0: (a) p-type semiconductor bar of cross-sectional area A and (b) steady-state
hole concentration about x = 0 envisioned in deriving the hole current associated
with diffusion.

Since l is typically quite small, the first two terms in a Taylor series expansion of
p(x) about x = 0 will closely approximate p(x) for x values between -l and +l; that
is,

..........................(ii)

Substituting Eq. (i) into Eqs. (ii) and performing the integrations yields,

...............................................(iii.a)

...............................................(iii.b)
and,
........................................(iv)

If 𝑝⃗ - 𝑝⃗ is multiplied by q and divided by t = l/𝑣̅,̅ one obtains the net charge

crossing the x = 0 plane per unit time due to diffusion. In other words,

And,

................................................(v)
Finally, introducing DP= v̅l/3, we obtain

..................................................(vi)
Generalizing Eq. (vi) to include a three-dimensional concentration gradient, we
obtain,

Analogously
 Scattering Theory

Q. What is Fermi’s Golden Rule?

Ans.

Fermi’s Golden Rule (also referred to as, the Golden Rule of time-dependent
perturbation theory) is an equation for calculating transition rates. The result is
obtained by applying the time-dependent perturbation theory to a system that
undergoes a transition from an initial state <i| to a final state <f| that is part of a
continuum of states.

Q. Discuss the Effect on Electron by Impurity Scattering?

Ans.
 Impurity scattering limits the mobility of electrons at low temperature
when there are few phonons present.

 Charged impurities such as ionized donors and acceptors have a

longrange Coulomb potential, whereas neutral impurities have complicated
short-range potentials. These two cases have different effects on the total
scattering rates.
 Impurity scattering degrades the diffusion coefficient, electronic mobility
and drift velocity, particularly at low and intermediate electric fields.

Q. Discuss overall Scattering by a Short-Range Impurity?

Ans.
A simple example of two-dimensional impurity scattering is provided by a circular
barrier of radius a. This is a short-range potential and might be used as a simple
model of a neutral impurity. The potential is defined by,

Its Fourier transform is,

where 0 is the angle between q and r. Unfortunately, the integral over θ gives a
Bessel function, a pervasive feature of two-dimensional Fourier transforms,
leaving

In the specific case of the circular barrier this becomes

Fig: Scattering rate of a circular barrier of radius a as a function of the scattering

wave number q.
 Isotropic & Anisotropic Crystals
Q.What do you mean by Isotropic Crystal? Discuss with
example.
Ans.
If the properties of a crystal do not change with different crystallographic
orientations, that crystal is called isotropic crystal. These properties can
be of mechanical, physical, thermal and electrical. The atomic pattern of
isotropic crystal has such a high degree of symmetry that their properties
do not vary in different orientations.
Example: Cubic crystals like rock salt and sodium chloride are isotropic
with respect to their electrical conductivity.

Q.What do you mean by Anisotropic Crystal? Discuss with

example.
Ans.
In a single crystal, the physical and mechanical properties often differ with
orientation. The term anisotropic is used to refer to crystals that have
atomic arrangements which are dependent on the direction of structure.
The physical properties of anisotropic crystals vary along the different
directions within the material. Usually, anisotropic materials are very
common in nature than isotropic materials due to the large variation of
atomic orientations. Almost all the crystals except cubic crystals are
considered as anisotropic.
Example: Ice crystal, carbon-carbon materials, layered materials are
common examples of anisotropic crystals.
Q.Write down the differences between Isotropic and
Anisotropic crystals.
Ans.
Characteristics Isotropic Crystal Anisotropic Crystal

Properties Direction independent Direction-dependent

Refractive index Only one More than one
Chemical bonding Consistent Inconsistent
Velocity of light Same in all directions Different
Double refraction No Yes
Application Lenses Polarizers

Effective Mass

Q. What is Effective Mass? Derive the expression of effective mass?

Ans. Effective mass is that mass which a particle (-e) seems to have when it is present
in a crystal of periodic potential. It is denoted by m*.
 Lattice Vibration
Simple Harmonic Model

Q. Discuss the refined model of Crystal Lattice.

Ans: In elementary physics, we assume that the atoms are rigidly located
in lattices. We Cannot explain specific heat, thermal expansion, thermal
conductivity, etc. Atoms vibrate even at absolute zero (zero-point motion,
zero-point energy) around equilibrium. The amplitude of the motion
increases as the atoms gain more thermal energy at higher temperatures.
So, a refined model is needed where Atoms are allowed to vibrate around
their equilibrium positions in the lattice. The refined model leads to
– the conditions for wave propagation in a periodic lattice,
– the energy content,
– the specific heat of lattice waves,
– the particle aspects of quantized lattice vibrations (phonons) – the
coupling between phonons and propagating electromagnetic
waves.
It also introduces the forbidden and permitted frequency ranges and
electronic spectra of solids.

Q. What do you mean by wave propagation?

Ans: The physics of propagating waves is governed by the wave equation

for medium of interest. The homogeneous wave equation for a general
scalar field E(t, r) at time instant t and location r = [x y z]T is given by,

where the parameter c represents the propagation velocity. E(t, r) can be

an electric density field in electromagnetics or acoustic pressure in
acoustic waves.
Q. Describe the solid-state properties of phonons.

Ans: The vibrational modes of crystalline lattices are called phonons, and
most salient examples of solid-state properties for which they are of
paramount importance are:

• Heat capacity: In metals with a rigid perfect lattice, only the free
electron like conduction electrons can take up small amounts of
energy (of the order of thermal energies). The specific heat capacity
due to these conduction electrons was computed to vary linearly
with temperature for T →0 in the first exercise. In insulators with
the same rigid perfect lattice assumption, not even these degrees of
freedom are available. Correspondingly, the only excitations would
be electronic excitations across the (huge) band gap Eg >>kBT. Their
(vanishingly small) probability will be ~exp(−Eg/kBT), and the
specific heat would show a similar scaling at low temperatures
accordingly. In reality, one observes, however, that for both
insulators and metals the specific heat varies predominantly with T3
at low temperatures, in clear contradiction to the above cited rigid
lattice dependencies.

• Thermal expansion: Due to the negligibly small probability of

electronic excitations over the gap, there is nothing left in a rigid
lattice insulator that could account for the pronounced thermal
expansions typically observed in experiments. These expansions
are, on the other hand, key to many engineering applications of
materials sciences (different pieces simply have to fit together over
varying temperatures). Likewise, for structural phase transitions
upon heating and finally melting the static lattice approximation
fails with a vengeance.

• Transport properties: In a perfectly periodic potential Bloch

electrons suffer no collisions (being solutions to the many-body
Hamiltonian). Assuming only point defects as responsible for finite
path lengths, one cannot explain quantitatively the really measured,
and obviously finite electric and thermal conductance of metals and
semiconductors. Scattering of electrons, propagation of sound, heat
 transport, or optical absorption are all fundamental properties of real
devices (like transistors, LED’s, lasers). They are among other
things responsible for the electric resistance and loss of the latter,
and can only be understood when considering lattice vibrations.

Q. Briefly discuss the harmonic approximation for the vibration of a

classical lattice.

Ans: For a classical, vibrating system the harmonic approximation

corresponds to considering only vibrations with small amplitude. For such
small amplitudes, the potential, in which the particle (or the particles)
is/are moving, can be expanded in a Taylor series around the equilibrium
geometry, keeping only the first leading term. To illustrate this, consider
the classic example of the one-dimensional harmonic oscillator. The
general Taylor expansion around a minimum at x0 yields

with the displacement s = x-x0. The linear term vanishes, because x0 is an

equilibrium geometry. For small displacements, the cubic (and higher)
terms will be comparably small, leaving in the harmonic approximation
only

Introducing the force acting on the particle,

 Acoustic & Optical Phonon

Q. What is Phonon?
Ans. Phonon, in condensed-matter physics, a unit of vibrational energy that arises
from oscillating atoms within a crystal. Any solid crystal, such as ordinary table salt
(sodium chloride), consists of atoms bound into a specific repeating three
dimensional spatial pattern called a lattice. Because the atoms behave as if they are
connected by tiny springs, their own thermal energy or outside forces make the
lattice vibrate. This generates mechanical waves that carry heat and sound through
the material. A packet of these waves can travel throughout the crystal with a
definite energy and momentum, so in quantum mechanical terms the waves can be
treated as a particle, called a phonon. A phonon is a definite discrete unit or quantum
of vibrational mechanical energy, just as a photon is a quantum of electromagnetic
or light energy.

or
A Phonon is a collective excitation in a periodic, elastic arrangement of atoms or
molecules in condensed matter, such as solids and some liquids. Often referred to as
a quasiparticle, it represents an excited state in the quantum mechanical quantization
of the modes of vibrations of elastic structures of interacting particles.

Q. Difference Between Phonon and Electron?

Ans.
Phonon Electron

Phonon is considered as a boson An electron is considered as an fermion

particle. particle.

An electron follows the principle of Phonon follows the Bose–Einstein

Pauli exclusion principle and Fermi– statistics.
Dirac statistics.

A phonon is a common vibrational An electron is a part of a single atom.

excitation of atoms in a solid.
 An electron is a charged particle with A phonon is a quantum of a mechanical
size and mass. vibration.

Q. What are the effects of Phonons in Nanostructures?

Ans.
 Acoustic phonons of nanoparticles exhibit Brillouin scattering that
depends on particle size.
 The broadening and shift of the Si and Ge Raman lines to lower
frequencies as the particle size decreases has been attributed to phonon
confinement effects in the nanocrystals.
 Acoustic modes shift to higher frequencies with reduced particle size
and optical modes shift to lower frequencies as the particle size is
reduced.
 In certain semiconductor nanostructures it is possible to turn off the
scattering by impurity atoms, resulting in very high carrier mobilities at
low temperatures.
 The temperature variation of the electrical mobility and electrical
conductivity for semiconductor nanostructures: Scattering by impurity
atoms is important at low temperatures but decreases with increasing
temperature. In contrast, scattering by phonons increases with
temperature, reflecting the increasing amplitude of the lattice vibrations.
The combined effect of these two processes is to give a mobility which,
at low temperatures, increases with increasing temperature, followed by
a decrease at high temperatures.

Q. Write down the types of phonons.

Ans.
Solids with more than one type of atom, exhibit two types of phonons in the smallest
unit cell: (i) Acoustic phonon and (ii) Optical Phonon.

Q. What is an Optical Phonon?

Ans.
A phonon arising in crystal lattice structures that have more than one atom per lattice
point and are typically easily excited by light is called an optical phonon.
Optical phonons have a non-zero frequency at the Brillouin zone center and show no
dispersion near the long wavelength limit. Optical phonons are often abbreviated as
LO and TO phonons, for the longitudinal and transverse modes respectively.

Fig: Optical Phonon

Q. What are the types of interaction of Optical Phonon? Discuss briefly.

Ans. There are two types of interaction of optical phonon. These are

i. Infrared active &

ii. Raman active
In ionic crystals such as sodium chloride, optical phonons are excited by infrared
radiation. This is because they correspond to a mode of vibration where positive
and negative ions at adjacent lattice sites swing against each other, creating a
timevarying electrical dipole moment. Optical phonons that interact in this way
with light are called Infrared active. Optical phonons can also interact indirectly
with light through Raman scattering which is called Raman active.

Q. What is an Acoustic Phonon?

Ans. Acoustic phonons are coherent movements of atoms of the lattice out of their
equilibrium positions. If the displacement is in the direction of propagation, then in
some areas the atoms will be closer, in others farther apart, as in a sound wave in air.
In terms of the dispersion relations for phonons, acoustic phonons exhibit linear
dispersion. The frequencies of acoustic phonons tend to zero with longer
wavelength. Longitudinal and transverse acoustic phonons are often abbreviated as
LA and TA phonons, respectively.

Fig: Acoustic Phonon

Q. Draw the graphical representation of Acoustical & Optical mode of Phonon.
Ans.

Q. Write the difference between Acoustic & Optical Phonon.

Ans.
Acoustic Phonon Optical Phonon

1. Acoustic phonons are excited easily 1. Optical phonons are excited easily
by sound. by light.

2. Both positive and negative ions 2. Positive and negative phonons

swing together. swing against each other.

3. In acoustic phonon, lattice waves 3. In optical phonon, lattice waves

occur due to in phase displacement of occur due to the opposite
atoms present in the lattice of the displacement of atoms present in a
crystal. basis of crystals.
4. Acoustic phonons usually converge 4. Optical phonons exhibit non-zero
to zero at the center of the Brillouin frequency at the Brillouin Zone.
Zone.
5. In longitudinal acoustic (LA) mode,
the atoms move in phase along the
direction of propagation of waves. In
contrast, the atoms move perpendicular
to the direction of motion of waves in
transverse acoustic (TA) mode.
5. Optical phonons exhibit both
longitudinal and transverse modes.
Depends on the degree of ionic and
covalent character of bonds present in
the crystals, these TO and LO modes
split each other and exhibit different
frequencies.