Owing to their very small size (say, L), at least along one dimension

Quantum size effects become important in nanomaterials:

When L is very small, then if

L ~ λdeBroglie or L < λdeBroglie

Wave nature (or Quantum behavior) of carriers becomes important …..

(Quantum Confinement of the carriers)

So, in nanomaterials, there are 2 important effects:

Large Surface to Volume ratio

Quantum confinement of carriers

We will apply
basic quantum mechanics and use the Effective mass Approximation.
In the effective mass approximation,
one assumes that both the electrons and the holes in a semiconductor follow a quadratic
dispersion on momentum (i.e. for E vs. k), just as for a free electron, but with an effective mass
(which may be typically about 0.1 me for the electrons, and 0.3 me for the holes.
 Quantum Confinement
Principle of simplicity:
Carriers in semiconductor are eqvt. to free e- with some effective mass.

Semiconductor m*/me λdB in nm

(at 300 K)
Reference:
InSb 0.014 61.7
Solid State Electronic Devices
GaAs 0.067 28.2 By
GaN 0.172 17.6
Streetman and Banerjee
SiC 0.41 11.4

When size of material L ~ or < λB (as in nanomaterials), the carriers

are quantum confined,

i.e. Quantum effects or Q size effects become important.

 Quantum Confinement

Semiconductor m*/me λB in nm
λB in nm
(at T = 300 K)
(at T = 3 K)

InSb 0.014 61.7

GaAs 0.067 28.2
GaN 0.172 17.6
SiC 0.41 11.4

The condition L ~ or < λB becomes less stringent at lower

temperatures; or,
Bulk Material

A large number of energy levels within a band with the separation

extremely small i.e. as good as continuous energy levels
Or
Quasi-continuous energy levels

In Quantum Confined material

Discrete energy levels are there, with appreciable separation between

levels such that the signatures are seen in the material’s behavior.
Now, we will move towards how discrete energy levels are
favoured in nanomaterials:

Homojunction vs HETEROJUNCTIONS
Or
Homostructures vs HETEROSTRUCTURES

A heterojunction is an interface between two layers or regions of

dissimilar semiconductors.
HETEROJUNCTIONS & HETEROSTRUCTURES
A structure made of semiconducting materials having unequal band gaps (as opposed
to a homojunction).

It is often advantageous to engineer the electronic energy bands in many solid-state

device applications, including semiconductor lasers, solar cells and transistors.
The combination of multiple heterojunctions together in a device is called
a heterostructure,
although these two terms are commonly used interchangeably.

A more modern definition of heterojunction is the interface between any two solid-
state materials, including
crystalline and amorphous structures of metallic, insulating, fast ion conductor and
semiconducting materials.
 The Nobel Prize in Physics 2000
"for basic work on information and communication technology"
“for developing semiconductor heterostructures “for his part in the
used in high-speed photography and opto-electronics” invention of the
Awarded jointly to integrated circuit”

Zhores I. Alferov Herbert Kroemer Jack S. Kilby

b. 1930 b. 1928 1923–2005
Ioffe Institute, Univ. California, Ioffe Institute is one of Russia's largest research centers
Saint Petersburg, Santa Barbara, USA specialized in physics and technology.
9
FABRICATION

Heterojunction manufacturing generally requires the use of

Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE)
or
MOCVD (Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition ) technologies

in order
to precisely control the deposition thickness and
to create a cleanly lattice-matched abrupt interface.

A recent alternative under research is the mechanical stacking of layered materials

into van der Waals heterostructures.
During Fabrication

to precisely control the deposition

thickness and
to create a cleanly lattice-matched
abrupt interface.

A recent alternative under research

is the mechanical stacking of
layered materials into
van der Waals heterostructures.
Some applications (Ref.: Wikipedia)

Despite their expensiveness,

heterojunctions have found use in a variety of specialized applications where
their unique characteristics are critical:

 Solar cells: Heterojunctions are commonly formed through the interface of a

crystalline silicon substrate and an amorphous Silicon passivation layer in solar
cells.

 The Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin-Layer (HIT) solar cell structure was
first developed in 1983[3] and commercialised by Sanyo/Panasonic.

 HIT solar cells now hold the record for the most efficient single-junction
silicon solar cell, with a conversion efficiency of 26.7%.[4]
 Lasers:

 Using heterojunctions in lasers was first proposed[5] in 1963 when

Herbert Kroemer, a prominent scientist in this field, suggested that
population inversion could be greatly enhanced by heterostructures.

 By incorporating a smaller direct band gap material like GaAs between two larger
band gap layers like AlAs, carriers can be confined so that lasing can occur at
room temperature with low threshold currents.

 It took many years for the material science of heterostructure fabrication to catch
up with Kroemer's ideas but now it is the industry standard.

 It was later discovered that the band gap could be controlled by taking advantage
of the quantum size effects in quantum well heterostructures.
 Lasers:

 In semiconductor lasers:

Semiconductor diode lasers ,

used in CD and DVD players and fiber optic transceivers,

are manufactured using alternating layers of various III-V and II-VI

compound semiconductors to form lasing heterostructures.
 Bipolar transistors:
 When a heterojunction is used as the base-emitter junction of a
bipolar junction transistor, extremely high forward gain and low
reverse gain result.
 This translates into very good high frequency operation (values in
tens to hundreds of GHz) and low leakage currents. This device is
called a heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT).

 Field effect transistors:

 Heterojunctions are used in high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) which
can operate at significantly higher frequencies (over 500 GHz). The proper
doping profile and band alignment gives rise to extremely high
electron mobilities by creating a two dimensional electron gas within a
dopant free region where very little scattering can occur.
Light and Heavy holes

What does 0 eV mark in the energy

band structure?
 Energy gap
magnitude and
its type can be
controlled by alloying.

GaAs : direct-gap sc

AlAs indirect gap sc

Direct gap sc’s

in devices requiring
light o/p:

sc LED’s and lasers

Direct Band-gap Alloy range

Indirect Band-gap Alloy range