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Extra Electron Phosporus Nucleus: T 0 K Room Temperature

This document discusses intrinsic and extrinsic semiconductors. It explains that doping silicon with donor atoms from Group V introduces an extra electron without generating holes, creating an n-type semiconductor. The donor atoms contribute electrons that are mobile at room temperature. Doping increases the number of conducting electrons approximately equal to the donor atom concentration, without changing the net charge of the semiconductor.

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31 views

Extra Electron Phosporus Nucleus: T 0 K Room Temperature

This document discusses intrinsic and extrinsic semiconductors. It explains that doping silicon with donor atoms from Group V introduces an extra electron without generating holes, creating an n-type semiconductor. The donor atoms contribute electrons that are mobile at room temperature. Doping increases the number of conducting electrons approximately equal to the donor atom concentration, without changing the net charge of the semiconductor.

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© © All Rights Reserved
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2.

2 INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC SEMICONDUCTORS 43

extra electron
phosporus
nucleus

Figure 2.5. Adding a donor atom creates a mobile electron without creating a hole.

Ec Ec

Ev Ev

T=0K room temperature

Figure 2.6. Picture of the donor effect in the band-gap energy model with change in temperature.

The electron jumps into the conducting energy band without creating a hole, so no elec-
tronhole pairs are generated, only free electrons. In this case, each impurity atom is
called a donor, since it implies that an extra electron is donated to the semiconductor.
Silicon is a Group IV atom in the Periodic Table and donor atoms come from the Group
V atoms.
When extrinsic silicon is doped with donors, the number of conducting electrons is
approximately equal to the number of donor atoms injected (ND) plus some electrons
coming from electronhole pair creation. When donor concentration greatly exceeds the
normal intrinsic population of carriers, then the conducting electron concentration is
essentially that of the donor concentration. By adding a specific concentration of
donors, the population of electrons can be made significantly higher than that of holes.
An extrinsic semiconductor doped with donor impurities is called an n-type semicon-
ductor.
When a considerable number of donor impurities are added (10151017 atoms per cm3),
the effect on the bandgap model is creation of an allowed energy level within the gap
close to the Ec (Figure 2.6). At zero Kelvin temperature, all electrons are at this energy
level and are not mobile within the solid. At room temperature, the energy required to
jump into the conduction band is small, and all donor electrons are ionized and remain in
the conduction band.
Doping a semiconductor does not increase its net charge, since the negative q charge
excess of the fifth electron with respect to the replaced silicon atom is balanced by the
atomic number* of the donor impurity (5 instead of 4 for silicon) giving an extra positive
charge that compensates the electron charge.

*The atomic number is the number of protons of a neutral (nonionized) atom.

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