ELECTRONIC

DEVICES
CARRIER TRANSPORT
Lecture - 14
 Scattering and its effect on
Mobility
Ionized Impurity Scattering:

τcI when NT or T

Phonon or lattice scattering:

τcL when T

•Carrier-carrier scattering does not affect the mobility of carriers if the carriers
involved are of the same polarity.

•However, the scattering of electrons by holes and vice versa can affect the
mobility.
•The carrier-carrier scattering affects only the minority carrier mobility in a
semiconductor.
•If electrons are in a majority then the hole mobility will be affected by scattering
with electrons.
•However , µ of electrons will not be affected by scattering with holes because
holes are in a small number.

• If the carriers are almost in equal number and their concentration is very high,
 Taking ionized impurity scattering and lattice scattering as dominant
scattering mechanisms and ignoring carrier-carrier scattering.

number of scattering events per unit time because τc is

the mean free

•Since τc is proportional to µ , we get,

time between collisions.

•The dependence of each component of mobility on temperature are

as follows:

•So µI increases with temperature because scattering reduces as a

function of temperature.

• But scattering increases with doping so the coefficient α is a strong

function of total doping and α decreases with total doping.

•So we can take the two segments of the mobility and whichever
mobility is lower will decide the overall mobility.
 •Whenever µL << µI , µ ≈ µL
μL α T -3/2

•Whenever µI >>µL , µ ≈ µI

•The overall mobility for any given

(log) μI α T
μ
3/2

doping as a function of temperature it

would be µI for low temperatures and µL
for high temperatures.
•If we want the mobility for a higher
doping then the ionized impurity
scattering increases with higher doping
NT so we will get another line corresponding
to a higher doping for ionized impurity
scattering.
300K Beyond room temperature, lattice
T

scattering
•
(log)

• dominates.

•What happens if Na=Nd???

•An equally doped semiconductor is same as
an intrinsic semiconductor True or false??
 Mobility in Silicon

Mobility as a function of doping Mobility as a function of doping

and temperature. At T=300K
At
OBSERVATIONS
T=300
1. Mobility falls as doping
K
increases

2. Mobility of electrons is
GREATER than Mobility of
holes for a given
semiconductor.
Mobility and Effective Mass in Si &
GaAs
•In the context of carrier
transport, we consider the
conductivity effective mass

•While estimating the carrier

concentration namely
effective density of states
density of states effective
mass is considered
 How the values of mobility affects the application of these two
semiconductors?
• Mobility of electrons in GaAs is much higher than mobility of electrons
in Si.
• Devices for high current applications or high speed application- GaAs is
preferred.
• For npn transistor, n-MOS FET , GaAs will deliver higher current and
high speed of operation as compared to Si.
• Since µp (GaAs)< µp (Si) for doping of 1014cm-3
• For GaAs -low hole mobility coupled with a very high electron mobility
 Resistivity in Extrinsic
Silicon
•Resistivity depends on :
• Carrier Concentration
• Carrier Mobility.
•By combining mobility and carrier
concentration dependence on
temperature we get resistivity as a
function of doping and temperature.

Conductivit
y

REGION 2 Increases upto a

EXTRINSIC certain
•Here in place of resistivity, conductivity as a RANGE Temperature and
function of temperature is plotted.
•Here in range II conductivity increases and
then decreases
then starts falling.
• And finally (in III) when it enters the intrinsic
REGION 3 Increases with
range, conductivity increases again.
INTRINSIC temperature
RANGE increase
Conductivity vs. Temperature in Extrinsic
Silicon

•Region 1 is called partial

Ionization range
•Region 2 is called the extrinsic
range.
•Region 3 is called the Intrinsic
range.
•Mobility on the same graph it
will increase and then fall and
•Conductivity somewhere near 1 and 2 .It
reaches a maxima point .

•In Region 2,w e get a rise and then a fall in conductivity.

 Carrier Concentration is constant. So variation is mainly due to
mobility.
 Fall  because of fall in mobility which is happening because of
lattice scattering.
 Rise over a small region in the extrinsic range  because of
ionized impurity scattering.
 CONDUCTIVITY IN INTRINSIC SILICON (σi)

1. Behavior of σi will depend on µn ,µp and ni.

In case of Intrinsic Silicon-

2. ni increases with temperature right and this change in ni with

temperature is very rapid as compared to variation in mobility.
3. µn and µp have a power law dependence on temperature whereas
ni has an exponential dependence in addition to the power law.
4. The resistivity of intrinsic silicon is not going to be very much
depended on a mobility behavior.

•Conductivity vs. Temperature is quite similar to the carrier

concentration behavior, because this is the most dominant variation as
compared to the power law variation Ta where, ‘a’ combines the 3/2
power as well as the power law due to mobility. It turns out that ‘a’ is
something like – 1
•From the slope of the resistivity versus reciprocal of temperature graph
(a)What will be the impurity
concentration?
(b) What will be the hole
diffusion coefficient at
300K?
 •Let us start with the first part, what is the
impurity concentration?

1 Ω cm 300K n type semiconductor can be written as qnn0 × µn we

•Now, as we have seen the conductivity of the

σ ≈ qnn0μn
ignore the hole component of the conductivity

1/ρ ≈ 1 / qnn0μn
because only majority carrier concentration
decides the conductivity so the resistivity is 1/ρ
that can be written as 1/qnno × µn.

nn0≈1/qρμn •We know ρ and we need to get nno so nno = 1/q × ρ

Nd ≈ nn0
× µn. Now difficulty in applying this particular
equation in a straight forward manner is that the
µn depends on the nno which we want to determine
so µn impurity
•The depends concentration
on the doping.is n we know that N
no, d
will be nno because we assume at 300 K complete
ionization and the majority carrier concentration
is almost equal to the doping level ignoring the
thermal generation.
 •We assume the mobility corresponding to the low

doping or maximum value of mobility here and find out

1 Ω cm 300K n type
the concentration.
σ ≈ qnn0μn
1/ρ ≈ 1 / qnn0μn
•Then we use this concentration and do iteration and
nn0≈1/qρμn find out the mobility corresponding to this

Nd ≈ nn0 concentration using the mobility versus doping

formula.

•Then use the new value of mobility and determine the

μn=μmax = 1330 cm2/V-s
concentration again.

Nd = 1/ qpμmax = 1/ 1.6X 10-19X1X1330 Unit is V-S / C Ω

cm cm2
= 4.7 X 1015When
• cm-3 we repeat this calculation two times normally
•Now we use this value of doping and find out the mobility.

•We can write using this formula

μn = (1330 – 65.5) /( 1+ (4.7 × 1015/8.5 × 1016)0.76 )+ 65.5 cm2/V-s.
Then the result will be a mobility of 1204 cm2/V-s.

Instead of a 1330 that we assumed earlier. Use this value of

mobility instead of µn max and we will get the new doping. The new
doping (Nd) will be 4.7 × 1015 × (1330/1204) and this is nothing but
5.2 ×1015 /cm3 which is the value of doping or impurity
concentration.
•To find out the diffusion coefficient of holes that is Dp
we can use the Einstein relation µp × Vt (thermal
voltage). Now µp we can find out using a formula similar
to this because we know the doping.

•We have formula for µn, hence there is a formula for µp,
so µ p = 495 – 47.7/(1 + (5.2 ×1015/6.3 ×1016)0.72 )+ 47.7
cm2/V-s.
This mobility is equal to 431 cm2/V-s.
Therefore Dp is (431 X 0.026) = 11.2 cm2/s and that is
 (c) What will be the
Resistivity of the sample
at 500K ?
1 Ω cm 300K n-type
•We need to check whether the
minority carrier concentration
 Resistivity at 500K
important?

ni(500K) = ni(300K) (500 / 300)3/2 exp [ -1.12/0.052

(300/500 -1)]
= 1.78 X 1014 cm-3 •The temperature is high so will the
hole concentration be important and
will it make a difference to the
Pn0=ni2/nn0 ≈ ni2 / Nd
resistivity. For this purpose we need
to find out the intrinsic concentration
= (1.78 X 10 ) / (5.2 X 10first
14 2 15
) at 500 K.

≈ 1013 << 5.2 X 1015

 •We find that pn0 is much less than nn0. So result is pn0 is much less
than nn0. We can still continue to use the relation σ ≈ q µn nn0.

•So the nn0 is nothing but the doping which we can replace by N d

•However the mobility at 500 K will not be the same as mobility at

300 K. We need to determine the mobility at 500 K and then we
can easily determine the conductivity or resistivity.

•Mobility at 500 K/mobility at 300 K can be written as = 500/300-

3/2
. This is because we are using the fact that in the extrinsic range
above room temperature the mobility approximately goes as T -3/2 so
µ = some constant × T-3/2
μn(500K) / μn (300K) = (500 /300)-3/2
μn(500K) = 1204 X (3/5)3/2 = 559.6 cm2/v-s
Calculatio
n: Pn0 << nn0
σ≈qμnNd
ρ≈1/qμnNd

ρ(500K) / ρ(300K) = μn (300K) / μn (500K)

ρ(500K) = (5/3)3/2 = 2.15 Ω-cm
(d) What will be the
Resistivity of the sample at
500K ?
•Now we have the final part of the example that we have to show and
this is the resistivity of the sample at 300 K on adding 1 x10 16cm3
atoms of boron.
Nd = 5.2 X 1015 / cm3 •Clearly, this is a p-type semiconductor
because Na is more than Nd so the
Na = 1 X 1016 / cm3
Carrier Concentration of holes i.e. the
majority carrier concentration in this
Pp0 ≈ Na-Nd = 4.8 X 10 / cm
15
case would be pp0 and can be written as
3

ρ≈ 1/qpp0p Na - Nd.

•All impurities are ionized and now we

can neglect the electron concentration
•The mobility of holes which because
we have minority
determinedcarrier concentration
earlier in context of
will be very
the diffusion coefficient calculation small.because of the particular
was only
doping so we need to recalculate the hole mobility. So we use the
formula µp = 495 – 47.7/(1 + (1.52 × 1016/(6.3 × 1016))0.72 )+ 47.7cm2/V-
s. and ρ≈
the1/qp
result is =
377 cmohm-cm
3.46
2
/V-s.
p0 p

•The resistivity has actually increased because the sample has become
p-type and hole mobility is smaller than electron mobility.
 Drift from Energy Band Point
of view
+ n type -
E
I

V
•Consider a piece of n–type semiconductor which is uniformly doped.
•In the semiconductor the electric field is in the direction as shown in
the figure.
•The electric field is assumed to be uniform potential will vary
linearly as we move from the left end to the right end
•What will be the energy band diagram in this case?
n type

Ec
Ei
Ener

Ev
gy

x
 •The energy band diagram without an
n type electric field it would look something like the
figure. Ec is the potential energy of the free
electron and Ev is the potential energy of the
Ec hole. And the distance axis is the x-axis. Y
axis is the energy.
Energy

Ei •The dotted lines which shows the intrinsic

level.
Ev
•So Ec is the potential energy of the
electron.Thus,
x  At the negative side(right
side) of the sample the
+ n type - electronic potential energy
E should be shown higher.
I
 left hand side is positive so Ec
•The valance band edge Ev will run
will be lower.
V parallel to the conduction band edge Ec
Ec
because:
Ev  when we apply voltage the
Electronic

energy gap(Eg)does not change in

Energy

the semiconductor.
 The Carrier Concentration is also
not changing so the structure of
the silicon is not changing.
 •Now what is the slope of Ec? This slope is nothing but slope of the
potential. Ec is energy and if we divide Ec/q we get the potential.
where ψ is the potential of a
positive
charge
the electronic charge being -q
+ n type -
express ψ in terms of Ec
E Ec/q is
I
electronic
potential.

V Ec

Ev
Electronic

•It is important to note here that the E in

Energy

the equation is here the electric field,

whereas in the previous slide in the
diagram E represents as Energy.
•Slope of Ec vs. x gives the electric field.
•Slope of this line is positive and therefore
the electric field is in the positive
direction from left to right.
 Now on this particular diagram we have to show the motion of an
electron, electron will move from right to left because it will move against
the electric field. This motion can be shown as follows.

•Let us say electron start from Ec and after collision it has started moving
in the direction towards the left.

+ n type -
E
I

collision . Kinetic
Electron suffers

V Ec energy drops to 0
Electronic

Ev
The difference represents the
Energy

kinetic energy of the electrons

that it has gained from the
electric field.
Electron gains Kinetic energy
from the electric field.
Total Energy=K.E+P.E=Constant.
So movement shown in Horizontal
 + n type -
E •The movement of charge carriers are
I
represented by a pattern of Horizontal and
Vertical Lines.
 Horizontal Line The total energy of
V the electron between two collisions
Ec
remains constant. It is losing
potential energy but it is gaining
Electronic

Ev
Electrons
.
kinetic energy.
Energy

 Loss in potential energy is exactly

equal to the gain in kinetic energy.
Holes

x
•One can similarly draw the movement of the hole on the energy band
diagram which would be something like as shown in the figure above.

•Note carefully-Fermi-level is not shown here because Fermi-level is

strictly an equilibrium concept and under non-equilibrium conditions
one can extend this idea but then one has to introduce what are called
Quasi Fermi-levels.