ECT 201 Solid State Devices

Formation of Energy Bands

n Type Semiconductor
Mr. Albins Paul
Asst. Professor
Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering

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ECT 201 – Solid State Devices Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering

Formations of Energy Bands

Electronic Configuration of Si is
1s22s22p63s23p2

Consider two atoms, which are completely

isolated from each other. Then there Will
not be any interaction of electron wave
functions between them. Thus the electrons in
isolated atoms occupy discrete energy levels.

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ECT 201 – Solid State Devices Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering

Formations of Energy Bands

As the atoms come closer their wave
functions begin to interact with each
other.
According to the Pauli's exclusion
principle, there must be at most one
electron per level.
Therefore the energy levels begins to
split into discrete energy levels.

This large number of closed spaced

energy level is termed as energy band
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ECT 201 – Solid State Devices Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering

Energy Band Diagram

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ECT 201 – Solid State Devices Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering

Intrinsic Semiconductor
• At a particular temperature, the number of EHPs in
an Intrinsic material is a constant.
• As temperature increases, an electron and a hole
may be created as a pair. Thus the number of free
electrons in the CB and holes in the VB of an
intrinsic material remains the same at any
temperatures and is referred to as the intrinsic
carrier concentration (ni).
• At any particular temperature, ni is a constant

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ECT 201 – Solid State Devices Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering

Intrinsic Semiconductor

• Filled VB is separated from empty

CB by a small band gap less than
4ev.

• At 0K, the semiconductor behaves

like an insulator

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ECT 201 – Solid State Devices Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering

Intrinsic Semiconductor

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ECT 201 – Solid State Devices Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering

Charge Carriers in Semiconductor

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ECT 201 – Solid State Devices Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering

N- Type Semiconductor
• A pentavalent impurity introduces
additional energy levels just below the CB
which is filled with electrons at 0K. These
levels are called donor energy level.
• When a very little thermal energy is attained by
the crystal electrons in the donor energy
get excited to the CB

• The difference in energy between the CB (Ec)

and the donor energy levels (ED) is called the
ionization energy.
• It is the energy required to ionize a donor
impurity atom into positively charged donor
ions. 9
ECT 201 – Solid State Devices Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering

N- Type Semiconductor

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ECT 201 – Solid State Devices Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering

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