INTRODUCTION TO

ELECTRONICS
ELECTRONICS
- science dealing with development and application of
devices and system involving the flow of electrons.

Etymology:
Electron - a negatively charged subatomic particle.
ics - a suffix of nouns that denote a body of facts,
knowledge, principles.
HISTORY OF ELECTRONICS
1745 – Ewald Georg von Kleist and Pieter
van Musschenbroek
• Discovery of the Layden Jar.
• It was the first electrical capacitor– a storage mechanism
for an electrical charge. The first ones were a glass jar filled
with water-two wires suspended in the water.
Ben Franklin (1706 – 1790)
• Single Fluid Theory of Electricity
• Conservation of Charge
• Lightning is nothing but electricity in the air.
Charles Augustus Coulomb (1736-1806)
• Developed Coulomb’s law of electrostatic charges which
states that the electrostatic force is proportional to the
product of the charges but inversely proportional to the
square of the distance between them.
Alessandro Volta (1745-1827)
• Proposed that electrical current is generated by contact
between two metals.
• Invented the voltaic pile/column, the first source of
continuous current.
André Marie Ampère (1775-1836)
• Gave a formalized understanding of the relationships
between electricity and magnetism using algebra.
• One of the first people to measure, rather than simply
detect, electric currents by using a device of his own
invention (astatic needle).
• Quantitatively described the relation between a
magnetic field and the electric current that produces it.
(Ampere’s Law).
Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851)
• Demonstrated a relationship between electricity and
magnetism by showing that an electrical wire carrying
current will deflect a magnetic needle.
George Simon Ohm (1789-1854)
• He found that some conductors worked better than others
and quantified the differences.
• Formulated “Ohm’s Law”.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
• Invented the first electric motor, the first electrical
transformer, the first electric generator and the first
dynamo.
Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) and
Wilhelm Eduard Weber (1804-1891)
• developed a consistent system of magnetic and electrical
units.
• development of telegraphy.
Joseph Henry (1797-1878)
• known for his discovery of self-inductance in an electric
circuit.
• pioneered the construction of strong, practical
electromagnets and built one of the first electromagnetic
motors.
Heinrich F.E. Lenz (1804-1865)
• He is best-known for Lenz's law, which states that induced
electric current flows in a direction such that the current
opposes the change that induced it.
Samuel Finley Morse (1791-1872)
• He brought a practical system of telegraphy to the fore
front using electromagnets.
• Invented the code that uses short and long signals, called
dots and dashes, to represent letters and numbers.
Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (1824-1887)
• He announced the laws which allow calculation of the
current, voltage, and resistance of electrical networks.
• Demonstrated that current flows through a conductor at
the speed of light.
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
• demonstrated that electric and magnetic fields travel
through space as waves moving at the speed of light.
• showed that 20 simple mathematical equations could
express the behavior of electric and magnetic fields and
their interrelated nature.
Sir William Crookes (1832-1919)
• pioneer of vacuum tubes, inventing the Crookes tube.
Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914)
• Demonstrated his electric lamp that used carbon and
had a partial vacuum.
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)
• Invented the incandescent light bulb.
• Invented also the phonograph, the motion picture
camera, as well as improving the telegraph and
telephone.
Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925)
• Responsible for operational calculus applied to circuits.
• He also proposed the ionized air layer named after him
(the Heaviside layer)
Heinrich Rudolph Hertz (1857-1894)
• First demonstrated the existence of radio waves.
• Demonstrated that velocity of radio waves was equal to
the speed of light.
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)
• pioneered the generation, transmission, and use of
alternating current (AC) electricity.
• Tesla’s other inventions included the Tesla coil, a kind of
transformer, and he did research on high-voltage
electricity and wireless communication.
Charles Proteus Steinmetz (1865-1923)
• discovered the mathematics of hysteresis loss, thus
enabling engineers of the time to reduce magnetic loss in
transformers.
• He also applied the mathematics of complex numbers to
AC analysis.
Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937)
• Known as the “father of wireless “.
• Did the first trans-Atlantic radio transmission in Morse code.
Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (1845-1923)
• Discovered X rays and its metallurgical and medical use.
Sir Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940)
• recognized as the British scientist who discovered and
identified the electron.
• theorized the “plum pudding” model of atomic structure.
Sir John Ambrose Fleming (1849-1945)
• He made the first diode tube.
Lee De Forest (1873-1961)
• created the triode tube, later improved and called the
Audion, an electronic detecting or amplifying vacuum
tube.
Jack St. Clair Kilby (1923-2005)
• Developed the integrated circuit
INTRODUCTION TO
SEMICONDUCTORS
Materials Used in Electronics
• Insulators - material that does not conduct electrical
current under normal conditions.
• Valence electrons is greater than 4.
Materials Used in Electronics
• Conductors - A conductor is a material that easily
conducts electrical current
• Valence electrons is less than 4.
Materials Used in Electronics
• Conductors - A conductor is a material that easily
conducts electrical current
• Valence electrons is less than 4.
Materials Used in Electronics
• Semiconductors - A semiconductor is a material that is
between conductors and insulators in its ability to conduct
electrical current.
• Valence electrons is exactly equal to 4

Silicon Germanium
Comparison of Silicon and
Germanium Atoms
Band Gap
A band gap is the distance between the valence band of
electrons and the conduction band.
What is an electron volt?
a unit of energy equal to the work done on an electron
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Semiconductors
Intrinsic Semiconductors
• They are pure semiconductors.
• Free electrons are only due to natural causes.

Extrinsic Semiconductors
• Impurity atoms are added.
• Added 1 part in 10 million.
• Process of adding certain impurity atoms to pure
semiconductors is called DOPING.
Covalent Bonding and Intrinsic Materials
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Semiconductors
Types of impurities
a. Pentavalent - Phosphorus (P), Arsenic (As), Antimony
(Sb), and Bismuth (Bi).
b. Trivalent – Indium (In) ,Gallium (Ga) , Aluminum (Al) ,
Boron (B).
N-type Semiconductors
The N-type semiconductor is described as a type of extrinsic
semiconductor doped with a pentavalent impurity
element.
P-type Semiconductors
The P-type Semiconductor is formed when a trivalent
(having three valence electrons) impurity is added to a
pure semiconductor in a small amount, and as a result, a
large number of holes are created in it.
Majority and Minority Carriers
The majority charge carriers carry most of the electric
charge or electric current in the semiconductor.

The charge carriers that are present in small quantity are

called minority charge carriers.
Electron vs. Hole Current
Electron current – movement of free electrons in a
semiconductive material.
Hole Current
Hole Current – movement of holes in the valence band of a
semiconductor material.