Tuesday, 5 May 2015

Define Doping & Explanation of P-Type and N-Type Materials?



N-type and P-type 
Materials:
Adding extremely small amounts of impurities to pure semiconductors in a controlled manner is called doping. Antimony, arsenic and phosphorus are called n-type impurities and form an n-type material when any of these impurities are added to silicon or germanium. The amount of impurity added usually varies from 1 part impurity in 105 parts semiconductor material to 1 part impurity to 108 parts semiconductor material, depending on the resistivity required. Indium, aluminium and boron are called p-type impurities and form a p-type material when any of these impurities are added to a semiconductor.

In semiconductor materials, there are very few charge carriers per unit volume free to conduct. This is because the ‘four electron structure’ in the outer shell of the atoms (called valency electrons), form strong covalent bonds with neighbouring atoms, resulting in a tetrahedral structure with the electrons held fairly rigidly in place. A two-dimensional diagram depicting this is shown for germanium in the figure below:Arsenic, antimony and phosphorus have five   valency electrons and when a semiconductor is doped with one of these substances, some impurity atoms are incorporated in the tetrahedral structure. The ‘fifth’ valency electron is not rigidly bonded and is free to conduct, the impurity atom donating a charge carrier. A two-dimensional diagram depicting this is shown in Figure below, in which a phosphorus atom has replaced one of the germanium atoms. The resulting material is called n-type material, and contains free electrons.

Indium, aluminium and boron have three valency electrons and when a semiconductor is doped with one of these substances, some of the semiconductor atoms are replaced by impurity atoms. One of the four bonds associated with the semiconductor material is deficient by one electron and this deficiency is called a hole. Holes give rise to conduction when a potential difference exists across the semiconductor material due to movement of electrons from one hole to another, as shown in Figure below:


In this figure, an electron moves from A to B, giving the appearance that the hole moves from B to A. Then electron C moves to A, giving the appearance that the hole moves to C, and so on. The resulting material is p-type material containing holes.
           

No comments:

Post a Comment