SEMICONDUCTOR

ELECTRONICS:
Materials, Devices and Circuits
Topics
• Classification of metals, semiconductors and insulators
• Intrinsic semiconductor
• Extrinsic Semiconductor
• pn junction
• Semiconductor Diode
• Principles and Characteristics of Diode
CLASSIFICATION
Valence Electrons
 The energy band gaps of silicon and
germanium are 1.1 eV and 0.7 eV respectively.
In an insulator, the forbidden energy gap between
the valence band and conduction band is of the order of 10 eV.
• Semiconductor follows Diamond structure
• GaAs follows Zinc blend structure
• GaN and AlN follows Wurtzite structure
Intrinsic Semiconductor
An intrinsic semiconductor will behave like an
insulator at T = 0 K

Ge and Si has
diamond-like structures.
Covalent bond
In intrinsic semiconductors, the number of free
electrons, ne is equal to the number of holes,
nh. That is ne = nh = ni

The total current, I is thus the sum of the

electron current Ie and the hole current I h
At equilibrium, the rate of generation is equal
to the rate of recombination of charge carriers.
 Acceptor

Extrinsic Semiconductor (p type)

• Intrinsic semiconductor doped with trivalent atom (Boron [B], Indium [In]).
• trivalent impurities have 3 valence electrons.
• Majority carrier is holes in p type semiconductors

Extrinsic Semiconductor (n type)

• Intrinsic semiconductor doped with pentavalent atom (Arsenic, Antimony, Phosphorous)
• a pentavalent impurity have 5 valence electrons.
• Majority carrier is electrons in n type semiconductors
Donor atom acceptor atom
Energy gap values of solids
• Diamond – 5.4eV - insulator
• Silicon - 1.1eV - semiconductor
• Germanium – 0.7eV - semiconductor
• Tin - 0eV - metal
 PN Junction

Two important processes occur during

the formation of a p-n junction:
diffusion and drift.
when a hole diffuses from p → n due to the concentration
gradient, it leaves behind an ionised acceptor (negative
charge) which is immobile. As the holes continue to diffuse,
a layer of negative charge (or negative space-charge region)
on the p-side of the junction is developed. This space-charge
region on either side of the junction together is known as
depletion region as the electrons and holes taking part in
the initial movement across the junction depleted the
region of its free charges
The thickness of depletion region is of the
order of one-tenth of a micrometre
The barrier potential of germanium is
approximately 0.3 V, and of silicon is 0.7 V.
The motion of charge carriers due to the electric field is called
drift.
this potential tends to prevent the movement
of electron from the n region into the p region,
it is often called a barrier potential.

In a p-n junction under equilibrium there is no

net current.
 PN JUNCTION

• When an external voltage V is • When an external voltage (V ) is

applied across a semiconductor applied across the diode such that n-
diode such that p-side is connected
to the positive terminal of the battery side is positive and p-side is
and n-side to the negative terminal, it negative, it is said to be reverse
is said to be forward biased. biased.
• Depletion layer width decreases and • The drift current is of the order of a
the barrier height is reduced. few µA.
• The total diode forward current is • For the diode in reverse bias, the
sum of hole diffusion current and current is very small (~µA) and
conventional current due to electron almost remains constant with
diffusion.
change in bias. It is called reverse
• The magnitude of this current is
usually in mA. saturation current.
VI Characteristics of pn junction

Knee voltage is the forward voltage at which

the flow of the current through the pn jn of
the diode increases rapidly
Knee voltage of Si = 0.7V
Knee voltage of Ge = 0.3V
Break down voltage is the reverse voltage at
which the flow of the current through the pn
jn of the diode fails.
RECTIFIERS
• A rectifier is a special type of diode that converts alternating
current (AC) into direct current (DC).

RECTIFIERS

Semiconductors
Half Wave Full Wave
Rectifier Rectifier

Centre Tapped Bridge Type

Rectifier Rectifier

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HALF WAVE RECTIFIER
A complete half-wave rectifier circuit consists of 3 main parts:
• A transformer
• A resistive load
• A diode
• 1) During +ve half cycle

Semiconductors
Acts as closed switch
• Diode Forward biased
• Diode acts as a closed switch
• Current flows from +ve to -ve

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• 2) During –ve half cycle

Semiconductors
• Diode Reverse Biased acts as open switch
• Diode acts as open switch
• No current flows

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 FULL WAVE RECTIFIER
• During +ve half cycle During –ve half cycle

Semiconductors
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 FWR

• During the positive half cycle of the alternating current, the top half of the secondary
winding becomes positive while the second half of the secondary winding becomes negative.
• During the positive half cycle, diode D1 is forward biased as it is connected to the top of the
secondary winding while diode D2 is reverse biased as it is connected to the bottom of the
secondary winding.
•Due to this, diode D1 will conduct acting as a short circuit and D2 will not conduct acting as an
open circuit
•During the negative half cycle, the diode D1 is reverse biased and the diode D2 is forward
biased because the top half of the secondary circuit becomes negative and the bottom half of
the circuit becomes positive.
•Thus in a full wave rectifiers, DC voltage is obtained for both positive and negative half cycle.
• The rectified voltage is in the form of pulses of the shape of
half sinusoids. Though it is unidirectional it does not have a
steady value.
• To get steady dc output from the pulsating voltage normally a
capacitor is connected across the output terminals (parallel to
the load RL). One can also use an inductor in series with RL for
the same purpose.
• Since these additional circuits appear to filter out the ac ripple
and give a pure dc voltage, so they are called filters.
Particulars HWR FWR
No. of Diodes 1 2
Maximum efficiency 40.6% 81.2%
Ripple factor 1.21 0.48
Output frequency f(in) 2f(in)
 ZENER DIODE
• operate under reverse bias in the breakdown region
• used as a voltage regulator.
• Heavily doped semiconductor
• Material: Si
• Turn on voltage : 0.3V – 0.7V
 PHOTODIODE
• operated under reverse bias.
• When the photodiode is illuminated with
light (photons) with energy (hν) greater
than the energy gap (E g) of the
semiconductor, then electron-hole pairs are
generated due to the absorption of
photons.
• The magnitude of the photocurrent
depends on the intensity of incident light
(photocurrent is proportional to incident
light intensity)
• used as a photodetector to detect optical
signals.
SOLAR CELL
• The device that convert optical radiation into electrical energy.
• Photovoltaic effect (same principle as the photodiode)
• Semiconductors with band gap close to 1.5 eV are ideal materials for
solar cell fabrication.
• Solar cells are made with semiconductors like
Si (Eg = 1.1 eV),
GaAs (Eg = 1.43 eV),
CdTe (E g = 1.45 eV),
CuInSe2 (E g = 1.04 eV), etc.
• The important criteria for the selection of a material for solar cell
fabrication are
• (i) band gap (~1.0 to 1.8 eV),
• (ii) high optical absorption (~10^4 cm–1),
• (iii) electrical conductivity,
• (iv) availability of the raw material, and
• (v) cost.
LIGHT EMITTING DIODE (LED)
• Operates in Forward Bias
• Heavily doped
• Release energy in the form of light (red, yellow, orange, green
and blue light)

Semiconductors
• Reverse breakdown voltage = 5V
• Spectral range of visible light 0.4 µm to 0.7 µm, i.e., from
about 3 eV to 1.8 eV
• Used in smart phone display, LED TVs
• Band gap of visible light – 1.8eV
• GaAs – Infra Red – 1.4eV
• GaAsP – red LED – 1.9eV 30
SEMICONDUCTOR ELECTRONICS