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September 4, 2012
Semiconducting materials
Semiconductors conductance is between that of conductors and insulators. They conduct current and have a negative thermal coecient (NTC), which means that their conductivity decreases when temperature rises. This is exactly the opposite behaviour of metals. At the moment semiconductors are the basic materials of electronic devices.
Semiconducting materials
Semiconducting materials
Semiconducting materials
Conductance band: electrons that can move freely. Valence band: electrons that take part in bonds and thus are bound to atoms. From the viewpoint of conductance the important bands: The highest band that contains electrons (valence band). The band above the valence band, which is almost empty (conductance band). The band gap between them.
Semiconducting materials
Semiconducting materials
Electrons: at the bottom of the conductance band, Holes: at the top of the valence band a hole is an absence of electron. Both electrons and holes take part in conductance! Generation: happens when an electron gets to the conductance band from the valence band.
This means that two charge carriers are created: an electron in the conductance band and a hole in the valence band.
Recombination: the opposite of generation when an electron falls back to the valence band.
Semiconducting materials
Charge and mass of charge carriers Electrons: have a negative charge and a positive mass. Holes: have a positive charge and a positive mass (!).
This can be explained in solid state physics were not going into such depth.
Semiconducting materials
Silicon has four electrons that take part in the bond between its atoms. Density:
g = 2.33 cm 3
Semiconducting materials
The charge carrier density is very low: a cube with edges of 10 m contains 10 electrons. The crystalline is doped in order to increase the charge carrier density.
Semiconducting materials
Doping
A small number of atoms of a dierent kind is injected into the crystal structure. This is done in a way that the dopants are placed on positions where normally Si atoms are located. Typical doping density: 1015 1019 / cm3 this is indeed doping and not alloying (the density is very low).
The atom density of silicon is 5 1022 /cm3 , so a typical doping of 1017 /cm3 means that two atom is changed to a dopant out of every one million, which leaves us with a purity of 99.9998 %.
Semiconducting materials
Electrons are the majority charge carriers Holes are the minority charge carriers donor concentration: Nd electron concentration: nn hole concentration: pn
Semiconducting materials
Electrons are the minority charge carriers Holes are the majority charge carriers acceptor concentration: Na electron concentration: np hole concentration: pp Concentrations in p-type Si pp Np pp > np
Semiconducting materials
Drift current I.
When a semiconductor is placed into an electric eld, the electrons start to drift in the opposite direction of the eld.
No external eld
Semiconducting materials
Drift current is the movement of charge carriers due to an external electric eld. Drift velocity is the speed of the charge carriers in the drift current: Drift velocity vd = n E vd = p E where
vd : is the drift velocity 2 n : is the mobility of electrons (Si: n = 1500 cm Vs ) 2 p : is the mobility of holes (Si: p = 475 cm Vs )
Semiconducting materials
Diusion current
Diusion current: is the movement of charge carriers due to an inhomogeneity in their density.
The movement is due to thermally induced movement of the electrons that is always present at temperatures above 0 K.
Semiconducting materials
Semiconducting materials
We will be concerned with the area at the center of the structure (physical distortions at the borders result in special eects that were not dealing with).
Semiconducting materials
Semiconducting materials
This results in a depleted area / space charge region an area at the junction which is empty of majority charge carriers. The dopants left by their extra electrons/holes become charged ions that create an electric eld, which prevents further diusion by generating a drift current of minority carriers in the opposite direction.
Semiconducting materials
Semiconducting materials
I = I0 e VT 1 where
I0 is the reverse current (saturation current) of the diode (I0 1014..15 A) VT is the thermal voltage: VT = kT q 26 mV |T =293 K
This is clearly a non-linear device its characteristic equation is exponential. In the forward direction the current is an exponential function of the voltage.
The current is multiplied by ten at every increase of the voltage by 60 mV.
Semiconducting materials
I = I0 e mVT 1 where m is the ideality factor (a.k.a. quality factor or emission coecient) it represents several secondary eects and ranges from 1 to 2. In the reverse direction: the reverse current of the diode starts to increase steeply with the voltage at the breakdown voltage (VBR ). If the the diodes current is limited by external means, the breakdown state does not harm the structure.
Semiconducting materials
As a very small change in the reverse voltage results in a big change in the reverse current at the breakdown state, it can be used to stabilize voltage. The diode is placed in a negative feedback conguration. Zener diode: special diode created to serve as a voltage stabiliser in the breakdown state.
Semiconducting materials
The characteristic equation of a diode gives all the voltage-current pairs that a diode can have. In operation the diode usually works at a certain operating point, i.e. at one of the voltage-current pairs of its equation. This point is determined by the elements surrounding the device. DC analysis: the calculations performed to nd the DC operating point of a non-linear device. The quantities describing the DC operating point are usually denoted with capital letters (V, I ).
Semiconducting materials
The KVL for the circuit is: Vt = I Rt + V which gives the equation of a line: Vt V I= Rt The line is called the load line it is the characteristic equation of the other element in the circuit (Rt ) as a function of the diodes voltage.
Semiconducting materials
The operating point (denoted with M in the gure) is at the intersecion of the two functions. If the graphical representation of the equations is given, this is easy to nd.
Semiconducting materials
current
Vd
voltage
We take advantage of the fact that the exponential function is very steep. The diode is substituted:
with a voltage source when it is switched on, with an open circuit when it is switched o.
The value of the voltage source (VD ) can be looked up in the datasheet of the diode (VD 0.7 V).
Semiconducting materials
Semiconducting materials
Small-signal analysis I.
It is important to investigate what happens when there are small changes in the input voltage e.g. when the supply voltage changes slightly during operation. For small changes the exponential function can be approximated with a linear equation around the operating point. In terms of the electric model, this means that the diode is substituted with its dierential resistance.
Semiconducting materials
I in the equation of the dierential resistance is the operating point current. Thus the value of the dierential resistance has a very strong dependence on the operating point.
Semiconducting materials
Vs = Vs0 + vs sin (t) If the changes are small, the diodes voltage and current are sinusoidal functions around the operating point.
Semiconducting materials
DC analysis equilibrium
Semiconducting materials
rd vt Rl + rd If Rl = 1 k, Vt = 5 V and vt = 1 V: u = rd i =
The dierential resistance: VT 26 mV rd = = = 6 I 4.3 mA The change (amplitude) of the diodes current: 1 i= 1mA 1.006 k the change (amplitude) of the diodes voltage:
Semiconducting materials
Supply voltages can be stabilized using Zener diodes. Consider the circuit on the left. Lets nd the voltage and current of the Zener diode. Vin = 12 V, R = 150 and VBR = 3.3 V. As the input voltage is larger than the breakdown voltage: the diode is in the breakdown state. I Vin VBR 12 3.3 = = 60 mA R 0.15
Semiconducting materials