Semiconductor

A semiconductor material has an electrical conductivity value between a conductor, such as copper, and an
insulator, such as glass. Semiconductors are the foundation of modern electronics. The modern understanding of
the properties of a semiconductor relies on quantum physics to explain the movement of electrons and holes in a
crystal lattice. An increased knowledge of semiconductor materials and fabrication processes has made possible
continuing increases in the complexity and speed of microprocessors and memory devices.

The electrical conductivity of a semiconductor material increases with increasing temperature, which is
behaviour opposite to that of a metal. Semiconductor devices can display a range of useful properties such as
passing current more easily in one direction than the other, showing variable resistance, and sensitivity to light
or heat. Because the electrical properties of a semiconductor material can be modified by controlled addition of
impurities, or by the application of electrical fields or light, devices made from semiconductors can be used for
amplification, switching, and energy conversion.

Current conduction in a semiconductor occurs through the movement of free electrons and "holes", collectively
known as charge carriers. Adding impurity atoms to a semiconducting material, known as "doping", greatly
increases the number of charge carriers within it. When a doped semiconductor contains mostly free holes it is
called "p-type", and when it contains mostly free electrons it is known as "n-type". The semiconductor materials
used in electronic devices are doped under precise conditions to control the location and concentration of p- and
n-type dopants. A single semiconductor crystal can have many p- and n-type regions; the p–n junctions between
these regions are responsible for the useful electronic behaviour.

Intrinsic semiconductor
An intrinsic semiconductor, also called an undoped semiconductor or i-type semiconductor, is a pure
semiconductor without any significant dopant species present. The number of charge carriers is therefore
determined by the properties of the material itself instead of the amount of impurities. In intrinsic
semiconductors the number of excited electrons and the number of holes are equal: n = p.

The electrical conductivity of intrinsic semiconductors can be due to crystallographic defects or electron
excitation. In an intrinsic semiconductor the number of electrons in the conduction band is equal to the number
of holes in the valence band. An example is Hg
0.8Cd
0.2Te at room temperature.

An indirect band gap intrinsic semiconductor is one in which the maximum energy of the valence band occurs
at a different k (k-space wave vector) than the minimum energy of the conduction band. Examples include
silicon and germanium. A direct band gap intrinsic semiconductor is one where the maximum energy of the
valence band occurs at the same k as the minimum energy of the conduction band. Examples include gallium
arsenide.

A silicon crystal is different from an insulator because at any temperature above absolute zero, there is a finite
probability that an electron in the lattice will be knocked loose from its position, leaving behind an electron
deficiency called a "hole". If a voltage is applied, then both the electron and the hole can contribute to a small
current flow.
The conductivity of a semiconductor can be modeled in terms of the band theory of solids. The band model of a
semiconductor suggests that at ordinary temperatures there is a finite possibility that electrons can reach the
conduction band and contribute to electrical conduction.

The term intrinsic here distinguishes between the properties of pure "intrinsic" silicon and the dramatically
different properties of doped n-type or p-type semiconductors.

Extrinsic semiconductor
An extrinsic semiconductor is a semiconductor that has been doped, that is, into which a doping agent has
been introduced, giving it different electrical properties than the intrinsic (pure) semiconductor.

Doping involves adding dopant atoms to an intrinsic semiconductor, which changes the electron and hole carrier
concentrations of the semiconductor at thermal equilibrium. Dominant carrier concentrations in an extrinsic
semiconductor classify it as either an n-type or p-type semiconductor. The electrical properties of extrinsic
semiconductors make them essential components of many electronic devices.

Properties
Variable conductivity
A pure semiconductor is a poor electrical conductor as a consequence of having just the right number of
electrons to completely fill its valence bonds. Through various techniques (e.g., doping or gating), the
semiconductor can be modified to have an excess of electrons (becoming an n-type semiconductor) or
a deficiency of electrons (becoming a p-type semiconductor). In both cases, the semiconductor
becomes much more conductive (the conductivity can be increased by one million fold or more).
Semiconductor devices exploit this effect to shape electrical current.
Depletion
When doped semiconductors are joined to metals, to different semiconductors, and to the same
semiconductor with different doping, the resulting junction often strips the electron excess or deficiency
out from the semiconductor near the junction. This depletion region is rectifying (only allowing current
to flow in one direction), and used to further shape electrical currents in semiconductor devices.
Energetic electrons travel far
Electrons can be excited across the energy band gap (see Physics below) of a semiconductor by various
means. These electrons can carry their excess energy over distance scales of micrometers before
dissipating their energy into heat – a significantly longer distance than is possible in metals. This
property is essential to the operation of, e. g., bipolar junction transistors and solar cells.
Light emission
In certain semiconductors, excited electrons can relax by emitting light instead of producing heat. These
semiconductors are used in the construction of light emitting diodes and fluorescent quantum dots.

Materials
A large number of elements and compounds have semiconducting properties, including:[1]

 Certain pure elements are found in Group XIV of the periodic table; the most commercially important of
these elements are silicon and germanium. Silicon and germanium are used here effectively because
they have 4 valence electrons in their outermost shell which gives them the ability to gain or lose
electrons equally at the same time.
 Binary compounds, particularly between elements in Groups III and V, such as gallium arsenide, Groups
II and VI, groups IV and VI, and between different group IV elements, e.g. silicon carbide.
  Certain ternary compounds, oxides and alloys.
 Organic semiconductors, made of organic compounds.

Most common semiconducting materials are crystalline solids, but amorphous and liquid semiconductors are
also known. These include hydrogenated amorphous silicon and mixtures of arsenic, selenium and tellurium in
a variety of proportions. These compounds share with better known semiconductors the properties of
intermediate conductivity and a rapid variation of conductivity with temperature, as well as occasional negative
resistance. Such disordered materials lack the rigid crystalline structure of conventional semiconductors such as
silicon. They are generally used in thin film structures, which do not require material of higher electronic
quality, being relatively insensitive to impurities and radiation damage.

Preparation of semiconductor materials

Semiconductors with predictable, reliable electronic properties are necessary for mass production. The level of
chemical purity needed is extremely high because the presence of impurities even in very small proportions can
have large effects on the properties of the material. A high degree of crystalline perfection is also required, since
faults in crystal structure (such as dislocations, twins, and stacking faults) interfere with the semiconducting
properties of the material. Crystalline faults are a major cause of defective semiconductor devices. The larger
the crystal, the more difficult it is to achieve the necessary perfection. Current mass production processes use
crystal ingots between 100 and 300 mm (4 and 12 in) in diameter which are grown as cylinders and sliced into
wafers.

Because of the required level of chemical purity and the perfection of the crystal structure which are needed to
make semiconductor devices, special methods have been developed to produce the initial semiconductor
material. A technique for achieving high purity includes growing the crystal using the Czochralski process. An
additional step that can be used to further increase purity is known as zone refining. In zone refining, part of a
solid crystal is melted. The impurities tend to concentrate in the melted region, while the desired material
recrystalizes leaving the solid material more pure and with fewer crystalline faults.

In manufacturing semiconductor devices involving heterojunctions between different semiconductor materials,

Physics of semiconductors
Energy bands and electrical conduction

Filling of the electronic Density of states in various types of materials at equilibrium. Here the vertical axis is
energy while the horizontal axis is the Density of states for a particular band in the material listed. In metals and
semimetals the Fermi level EF lies inside at least one band. In insulators and semiconductors the Fermi level is
inside a band gap; however, in semiconductors the bands are near enough to the Fermi level to be thermally
populated with electrons or holes.
edit

Semiconductors are defined by their unique electric conductive behavior, somewhere between that of a metal
and an insulator. The differences between these materials can be understood in terms of the quantum states for
electrons, each of which may contain zero or one electron (by the Pauli exclusion principle). These states are
associated with the electronic band structure of the material. Electrical conductivity arises due to the presence of
electrons in states that are delocalized (extending through the material), however in order to transport electrons
a state must be partially filled, containing an electron only part of the time.[2] If the state is always occupied with
an electron, then it is inert, blocking the passage of other electrons via that state. The energies of these quantum
states are critical, since a state is partially filled only if its energy is near the Fermi level (see Fermi–Dirac
statistics).

High conductivity in a material comes from it having many partially filled states and much state delocalization.
Metals are good electrical conductors and have many partially filled states with energies near their Fermi level.
Insulators, by contrast, have few partially filled states, their Fermi levels sit within band gaps with few energy
states to occupy. Importantly, an insulator can be made to conduct by increasing its temperature: heating
provides energy to promote some electrons across the band gap, inducing partially filled states in both the band
of states beneath the band gap (valence band) and the band of states above the band gap (conduction band). An
(intrinsic) semiconductor has a band gap that is smaller than that of an insulator and at room temperature
significant numbers of electrons can be excited to cross the band gap.[3]

A pure semiconductor, however, is not very useful, as it is neither a very good insulator nor a very good
conductor. However, one important feature of semiconductors (and some insulators, known as semi-insulators)
is that their conductivity can be increased and controlled by doping with impurities and gating with electric
fields. Doping and gating move either the conduction or valence band much closer to the Fermi level, and
greatly increase the number of partially filled states.

Some wider-band gap semiconductor materials are sometimes referred to as semi-insulators. When undoped,
these have electrical conductivity nearer to that of electrical insulators, however they can be doped (making
them as useful as semiconductors). Semi-insulators find niche applications in micro-electronics, such as
substrates for HEMT. An example of a common semi-insulator is gallium arsenide.[4] Some materials, such as
titanium dioxide, can even be used as insulating materials for some applications, while being treated as wide-
gap semiconductors for other applications.

Charge carriers (electrons and holes)

Main article: Electron hole

The partial filling of the states at the bottom of the conduction band can be understood as adding electrons to
that band. The electrons do not stay indefinitely (due to the natural thermal recombination) but they can move
around for some time. The actual concentration of electrons is typically very dilute, and so (unlike in metals) it
is possible to think of the electrons in the conduction band of a semiconductor as a sort of classical ideal gas,
where the electrons fly around freely without being subject to the Pauli exclusion principle. In most
semiconductors the conduction bands have a parabolic dispersion relation, and so these electrons respond to
forces (electric field, magnetic field, etc.) much like they would in a vacuum, though with a different effective
mass.[3] Because the electrons behave like an ideal gas, one may also think about conduction in very simplistic
terms such as the Drude model, and introduce concepts such as electron mobility.

For partial filling at the top of the valence band, it is helpful to introduce the concept of an electron hole.
Although the electrons in the valence band are always moving around, a completely full valence band is inert,
not conducting any current. If an electron is taken out of the valence band, then the trajectory that the electron
would normally have taken is now missing its charge. For the purposes of electric current, this combination of
the full valence band, minus the electron, can be converted into a picture of a completely empty band containing
a positively charged particle that moves in the same way as the electron. Combined with the negative effective
mass of the electrons at the top of the valence band, we arrive at a picture of a positively charged particle that
responds to electric and magnetic fields just as a normal positively charged particle would do in vacuum, again
with some positive effective mass.[3] This particle is called a hole, and the collection of holes in the valence can
again be understood in simple classical terms (as with the electrons in the conduction band).

Carrier generation and recombination

Main article: Carrier generation and recombination

When ionizing radiation strikes a semiconductor, it may excite an electron out of its energy level and
consequently leave a hole. This process is known as electron–hole pair generation. Electron-hole pairs are
constantly generated from thermal energy as well, in the absence of any external energy source.

Electron-hole pairs are also apt to recombine. Conservation of energy demands that these recombination events,
in which an electron loses an amount of energy larger than the band gap, be accompanied by the emission of
thermal energy (in the form of phonons) or radiation (in the form of photons).

In some states, the generation and recombination of electron–hole pairs are in equipoise. The number of
electron-hole pairs in the steady state at a given temperature is determined by quantum statistical mechanics.
The precise quantum mechanical mechanisms of generation and recombination are governed by conservation of
energy and conservation of momentum.

As the probability that electrons and holes meet together is proportional to the product of their amounts, the
product is in steady state nearly constant at a given temperature, providing that there is no significant electric
field (which might "flush" carriers of both types, or move them from neighbour regions containing more of
them to meet together) or externally driven pair generation. The product is a function of the temperature, as the
probability of getting enough thermal energy to produce a pair increases with temperature, being approximately
exp(−EG/kT), where k is Boltzmann's constant, T is absolute temperature and EG is band gap.

The probability of meeting is increased by carrier traps—impurities or dislocations which can trap an electron
or hole and hold it until a pair is completed. Such carrier traps are sometimes purposely added to reduce the
time needed to reach the steady state.

Doping

The conductivity of semiconductors may easily be modified by introducing impurities into their crystal lattice.
The process of adding controlled impurities to a semiconductor is known as doping. The amount of impurity, or
dopant, added to an intrinsic (pure) semiconductor varies its level of conductivity. Doped semiconductors are
referred to as extrinsic. By adding impurity to the pure semiconductors, the electrical conductivity may be
varied by factors of thousands or millions.

A 1 cm3 specimen of a metal or semiconductor has of the order of 1022 atoms. In a metal, every atom donates at
least one free electron for conduction, thus 1 cm3 of metal contains on the order of 1022 free electrons, whereas a
1 cm3 sample of pure germanium at 20 °C contains about 4.2×1022 atoms, but only 2.5×1013 free electrons and
2.5×1013 holes. The addition of 0.001% of arsenic (an impurity) donates an extra 1017 free electrons in the same
volume and the electrical conductivity is increased by a factor of 10,000.

The materials chosen as suitable dopants depend on the atomic properties of both the dopant and the material to
be doped. In general, dopants that produce the desired controlled changes are classified as either electron
acceptors or donors. Semiconductors doped with donor impurities are called n-type, while those doped with
acceptor impurities are known as p-type. The n and p type designations indicate which charge carrier acts as the
material's majority carrier. The opposite carrier is called the minority carrier, which exists due to thermal
excitation at a much lower concentration compared to the majority carrier.
For example, the pure semiconductor silicon has four valence electrons which bond each silicon atom to its
neighbors. In silicon, the most common dopants are group III and group V elements. Group III elements all
contain three valence electrons, causing them to function as acceptors when used to dope silicon. When an
acceptor atom replaces a silicon atom in the crystal, a vacant state ( an electron "hole") is created, which can
move around the lattice and functions as a charge carrier. Group V elements have five valence electrons, which
allows them to act as a donor; substitution of these atoms for silicon creates an extra free electron. Therefore, a
silicon crystal doped with boron creates a p-type semiconductor whereas one doped with phosphorus results in
an n-type material.

During manufacture, dopants can be diffused into the semiconductor body by contact with gaseous compounds
of the desired element, or ion implantation can be used to accurately position the doped regions.

Early history of semiconductors

The history of the understanding of semiconductors begins with experiments on the electrical properties of
materials. The properties of negative temperature coefficient of resistance, rectification, and light-sensitivity
were observed starting in the early 19th century.

In 1833, Michael Faraday reported that the resistance of specimens of silver sulfide decreases when they are
heated. This is contrary to the behavior of metallic substances such as copper. In 1839, A. E. Becquerel reported
observation of a voltage between a solid and a liquid electrolyte when struck by light, the photovoltaic effect. In
1873 Willoughby Smith observed that selenium resistors exhibit decreasing resistance when light falls on them.
In 1874 Karl Ferdinand Braun observed conduction and rectification in metallic sulphides, and Arthur Schuster
found that a copper oxide layer on wires has rectification properties that ceases when the wires are cleaned.
Adams and Day observed the photovoltaic effect in selenium in 1876.[5]

A unified explanation of these phenomena required a theory of solid-state physics which developed greatly in
the first half of the 20th Century. In 1878 Edwin Herbert Hall demonstrated the deflection of flowing charge
carriers by an applied magnetic field, the Hall effect. The discovery of the electron by J.J. Thomson in 1897
prompted theories of electron-based conduction in solids. Karl Baedeker, by observing a Hall effect with the
reverse sign to that in metals, theorized that copper iodide had positive charge carriers. Johan Koenigsberger
classified solid materials as metals, insulators and "variable conductors" in 1914. Felix Bloch published a theory
of the movement of electrons through atomic lattices in 1928. In 1930, B. Gudden stated that conductivity in
semiconductors was due to minor concentrations of impurities. By 1931, the band theory of conduction had
been established by Alan Herries Wilson and the concept of band gaps had been developed. Walter H. Schottky
and Nevill Francis Mott developed models of the potential barrier and of the characteristics of a metal-
semiconductor junction. By 1938, Boris Davydov had developed a theory of the copper-oxide rectifer,
identifying the effect of the p–n junction and the importance of minority carriers and surface states.[6]

Agreement between theoretical predictions (based on developing quantum mechanics) and experimental results
was sometimes poor. This was later explained by John Bardeen as due to the extreme "structure sensitive"
behavior of semiconductors, whose properties change dramatically based on tiny amounts of impurities. [6]
Commercially pure materials of the 1920s containing varying proportions of trace contaminants produced
differing experimental results. This spurred the development of improved material refining techniques,
culminating in modern semiconductor refineries producing materials with parts-per-trillion purity.

Devices using semiconductors were at first constructed based on empirical knowledge, before semiconductor
theory provided a guide to construction of more capable and reliable devices.
Alexander Graham Bell used the light-sensitive property of selenium to transmit sound over a beam of light in
1880. A working solar cell, of low efficiency, was constructed by Charles Fritts in 1883 using a metal plate
coated with selenium and a thin layer of gold; the device became commercially useful in photographic light
meters in the 1930s.[6] Point-contact microwave detector rectifiers made of lead sulfide were used by Jagadish
Chandra Bose in 1904; the cat's-whisker detector using natural galena or other materials became a common
device in the development of radio. However, it was somewhat unpredictable in operation and required manual
adjustment for best performance. In 1906 H.J. Round observed light emission when electric current passed
through silicon carbide crystals, the principle behind the light emitting diode. Oleg Losev observed similar light
emission in 1922 but at the time the effect had no practical use. Power rectifiers, using copper oxide and
selenium, were developed in the 1920s and became commercially important as an alternative to vacuum tube
rectifiers.[5][6]

In the years preceding World War II, infra-red detection and communications devices prompted research into
lead-sulfide and lead-selenide materials. These devices were used for detecting ships and aircraft, for infrared
rangefinders, and for voice communication systems. The point-contact crystal detector became vital for
microwave radio systems, since available vacuum tube devices could not serve as detectors above about
4000 MHz; advanced radar systems relied on the fast response of crystal detectors. Considerable research and
development of silicon materials occurred during the war to develop detectors of consistent quality. [6]

Detector and power rectifiers could not amplify a signal. Many efforts were made to develop a solid-state
amplifier, but these were unsuccessful because of limited theoretical understanding of semiconductor materials.
[6]
In 1922 Oleg Losev developed two-terminal, negative resistance amplifiers for radio; however, he perished in
the Siege of Leningrad. In 1926 Julius Edgar Lilienfeld patented a device resembling a modern field-effect
transistor, but it was not practical. R. Hilsch and R. W. Pohl in 1938 demonstrated a solid-state amplifier using a
structure resembling the control grid of a vacuum tube; although the device displayed power gain, it had a cut-
off frequency of one cycle per second, too low for any practical applications, but an effective application of the
available theory.[6] At Bell Labs, William Shockley and A. Holden started investigating solid-state amplifiers in
1938. The first p–n junction in silicon was observed by Russell Ohl about 1941, when a specimen was found to
be light-sensitive, with a sharp boundary between p-type impurity at one end and n-type at the other. A slice cut
from the specimen at the p–n boundary developed a voltage when exposed to light.

In France, during the war, Herbert Mataré had observed amplification between adjacent point contacts on a
germanium base. After the war, Mataré's group announced their "Transistron" amplifier only shortly after Bell
Labs announced the "transistor".