Semiconductors

-Mrs. Minakshi Godbole

What is semiconductor
• Semiconductors are the materials which have conductivity between
conductors and non-conductors or insulators.
• Conductivity of semiconductors increases as the temperatures rises.
• Its conducting properties may be altered by adding impurities (doping) to
the crystal structure.
• ICs and electronic components like diodes and transistors are made of
semiconductors.
• As the electrical properties of a semiconductor material can be modified by
doping and by applying electrical fields or light, devices made from
semiconductor can be used for amplification, switching and energy
conversion
• Examples of semiconductor: silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide.
Types of Semiconductors
Semiconductors

Intrinsic (Pure) Extrinsic

(Impure)

N-type P-Type
Intrinsic Semiconductor
• It is made of the semiconductor material in its extremely pure form.

• A semiconductor is said to be intrinsic(pure) when its impurity

content is less than one part impurity in 100 million parts of
semiconductor.

• Common examples of intrinsic semiconductors are pure Germanium

and Silicon.
Atomic Structure of Silicon
• Silicon atom has 4 electrons in outermost orbit and thus requires 4
more electrons to fill valance shell.

• It shares one electron from each of neighboring atom, forms a

uniform 3-D pattern called crystal.

• Covalent bond consists of 2 electrons shared by 2 adjacent atoms.

Atomic structure of silicon and germanium
Semiconductor Crystal
Behavior of Silicon
• At absolute zero temperature, all valance electrons are tightly bound
together so semiconductor acts like an insulator.
• At room temperature , the temperature is sufficient for a valance electron
to move away from influence of nucleus.
• It breaks covalent bond, becomes free and moves away. This creates
vacancy called hole in the broken covalent bond. Hole is positively charged.
• Free electrons and holes are always generated in pairs and is known as
thermal generation.
• The amount of energy required to break the covalent bond for Silicon is
1.12ev. ( for Germanium it is 0.72 ev)
Electron-Hole pair generation
Hole Movement
• Suppose an electron in the crystal gets sufficient energy and breaks a
covalent bond. It becomes free and jumps to conduction bond leaving
behind hole say A.

• The broken bond now has only one electron and tries to acquire an
electron to complete the pair.

• Due to thermal energy, an electron from neighboring bond may get

sufficient energy to break its own bond.

• It then jumps into the hole at ‘A’ creating new hole say ‘B’. Hole A
disappears. This is continued.
Hole movement
• This movement of holes is actually due to the movement of electrons
and this movement of electrons is different from the movement of
free electrons.

• Free electrons move randomly in conduction band.

• Holes move randomly in valance band because of the movement of

electrons in valance band.
Electrons –holes movement
Conduction in semiconductor
• When battery is connected across an intrinsic semiconductor, random motion of
electrons and holes is modified.

• Electrons are attracted towards +ve terminal and holes towards –ve terminal.
Thus random motion of electrons and holes get modified.

• Over and above the random motion, there also occurs the net movement called
drift.

• Thus current starts flowing in certain specific direction.

• As temperature increases, the conductivity of intrinsic semiconductor increases.

Current flow in intrinsic semiconductor
• Free electrons drift towards
positive terminal of the battery.
And the holes towards negative
terminal.
• The electric current flows in the
same direction as in which the
holes are moving.
• The direction of this conventional
current is opposite to the direction
of motion of electrons.
• The flow of carriers is due to an
applied voltage, the resultant
current is called a drift current.
Effect of Temperature on conductivity of
Intrinsic semiconductor
• At absolute zero temperature it behaves as a perfect insulator.

• At room temperature, due to thermal energy, some electron-hole

pairs are generated and semiconductor shows a small conductivity.

• Further rise in temperature more electron-hole pairs are generated.

Thus the conductivity of semiconductor increases with temperature.

• In other words, the resistivity decreases as the temperature

increases.
Extrinsic Semiconductors
• Intrinsic i.e. pure semiconductors are of very little use. May be used only as
a heat or light sensitive resistance.

• Practically all the semiconductor devices are made up of a semiconductor

material to which certain specified type of impurities have been added.

• The process of deliberately adding impurities to a semiconductor material

is called as doping.
• Doping is done after the semiconductor material has been refined to a high
degree of purity.

• A doped semiconductor is called as Extrinsic Semiconductor.

Types of Extrinsic Semiconductor

• N-Type

• P-Type
N-Type Semiconductor
• A small amount of pentavalent impurity like phosphorus is added to
intrinsic silicon.

• The size of impurity atom is roughly same as that of silicon atom and
it replaces a silicon atom in its crystalline structure.

• As the amount of impurity is very small it gets surrounded all around

by silicon atoms.
N-Type Semiconductor
N-Type Semiconductor
• Adding Phosphorus impurity to Silicon
N-Type Semiconductor
• Phosphorus atom has five valence electrons and silicon has 4 valence
electrons.
• When phosphorus is added to silicon crystal, 4 of its valence electrons form
covalent bonds with four neighboring silicon atoms. One electron remains
unassociated.
• As this 5th electron is not associated with any covalent bond and is quite far
from the nucleus, it is very loosely bound.
• It requires very little energy to free itself. Even at room temperature, all
such electrons become free.
• Thus at room temperature impurity atom donates one electron to the
conduction band and so is called as a donor type.
• All electrons which have been donated by the impurity atoms can take part
in conduction of electric current.
N-Type Semiconductor
• Besides these free electrons, there will also be some electron-hole
pairs generation due to the breaking of covalent bonds.
• Here number of holes is very small compared to the number of free
electrons due to additional impurity atoms.
• Also the chances of recombination of electrons and holes increases.
• Resultantly the overall number of holes is very less.

• As the number of free electrons is far greater than the number of

holes, it is said that N-type semiconductor has electrons (negatively
charged) as majority carriers and holes as minority carriers.
N-Type Semiconductor
• Core of the pentavalent impurity atom has +5 charge.

• When 5th electron of impurity atom leaves it, its core contains +1
charge in excess.

• It then becomes positively charged immobile ion.

• It is immobile because it is held tightly in the crystal by the four

covalent bonds.
Representation of N-Type Semiconductor

Immobile Ion

Free Electron (-ve charge)

Hole (+ve charge)

P-Type Semiconductor

• A small amount of trivalent impurity like boron, aluminum, gallium

and indium is added to intrinsic silicon.

• As an example suppose a small amount of boron is added to intrinsic

silicon.

• As the amount of boron is very small(one part in one million) it gets

surrounded all around by silicon atoms.
P-Type Semiconductor
• Boron atom has three electrons in its valance band.

• So it forms covalent bond with three neighboring silicon atoms.

• Fourth silicon atom in the crystal cannot complete the covalent bond as
there is a deficiency of one electron around the boron atom.

• A single electron in the incomplete bond snatches one electron from the
neighbouring atom.

• An electron with a very small additional energy, in an adjacent bond, can

jump to occupy the vacant place.

• This electron completes the covalent bond around the boron atom.
P-Type Semiconductor
P-Type Semiconductor
• The additional energy required for this is just of the order of 0.01 eV which is
easily provided by thermal energy at room temperature,.

• So at room temperature it completes the bonds around all the boron atoms.

• When an electron in the adjacent bond jumps to complete the bond around the
boron atom, a hole with positive charge is created .

• As the boron atom accepts an electron for the filling of incomplete bond around
it, it becomes negative ion. Also it is called as acceptor type impurity.

• It is immobile as it is held tightly in the crystal structure by covalent bonds.

P-type Semiconductor
P-Type Semiconductor
• In P-type semiconductor, excess holes are created due to the addition
of acceptor type impurity.

• Besides this there are some holes and free electron pairs generated
by breaking covalent bonds(thermal generation)

• Thus all together P-type material has holes that is positively charged
carriers in majority and free electrons in minority.
Representation of P-Type Semiconductor
Difference between P-type and N-type
semiconductor
P-type Semiconductor N-type Semiconductor
The P-type semiconductor can be formed by The N-type semiconductor can be formed by
adding trivalent impurities adding pentavalent impurities
Once the impurity is added, then it creates Once the impurity is added, then it gives extra
holes or vacancy of electrons. So this is called electrons. So this is called a donor Atom.
an acceptor atom.
In P-type Negatively charged immobile ions In N- type positively charged immobile ions
are created. are created.
The majority charge carriers are holes & The majority charge carriers are electrons &
minority charge carriers are electrons minority charge carriers are holes

The III group elements like Ga, Al, In, etc. are The V group elements like As, P, Bi, Sb, etc.
added. are added.