A PROJECT SUBMITTD FOR

C.B.S.E. PHYSICS PRACTCAL

EXAMINATION- 2016
ARYAMAN VIKRAM BIRLA INSTITUTE OF
LEARNING, HALDWANI.

Semiconductors and its application as Rectifier

Submitted toDr. Gagan Majhi

Teacher (Physics)

Compiled ByRaunak Pant

XII c

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that RAUNAK PANT of class XII C as satisfactorily prosecuted
the work assigned to her for the project entitled SEMICONDUCTOR AND ITS
APPLICATION AS RECTIFIER
This is a bonafied work carried out by the above candidate under my
supervision and guidance.
I glad fully approved hIS work.

DR. GAGAN KUMAR MAJHI

PGT PHYSICS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.

THIS PROJECT IS DEEPLY DEDICATED TO Dr. GAGAN MAJHI

WHO HAS GUIDED ME VERY WELL TO COMPLETE THIS PROJECT.
I THANK HIM FOR HIS SUPPORT AND GUIDANCE WHICH HE HAS
GIVEN ME.
I ALSO WANT TO THANK MY FRIENDS FOR THEIR HELP AND
ALSO MY PARENTS FOR THEIR INTENSIVE SUPPORT.
THANKS

A LO T..!!

INTRODUCTION

A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity due to electron flow (as

opposed to ionic conductivity) intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and
an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 103 to 108 siemens per
centimeter. Semiconductor materials are the foundation of modern electronics, including
radio, computers, telephones, and many other devices. Such devices include transistors,
solar cells, many kinds of diodes including the light-emitting diode, the silicon controlled
rectifier, and digital and analog integrated circuits. Similarly, semiconductor solar
photovoltaic panels directly convert light energy into electrical energy. In a metallic
conductor, current is carried by the flow of electrons. In semiconductors, current is often
schematized as being carried either by the flow of electrons or by the flow of positively
charged "holes" in the electron structure of the material. Actually, however, in both cases
only electron movements are involved.
Common semiconducting materials are crystalline solids, but amorphous and liquid
semiconductors are known. These include hydrogenated amorphous silicon and mixtures of
arsenic, selenium and tellurium in a variety of proportions. Such compounds share with better
known semiconductors intermediate conductivity and a rapid variation of conductivity with
temperature, as well as occasional negative resistance. Such disordered materials lack the
rigid crystalline structure of conventional semiconductors such as silicon and are generally
used in thin film structures, which are less demanding for as concerns the electronic quality of
the material and thus are relatively insensitive to impurities and radiation damage. Organic
semiconductors, that is, organic materials with properties resembling conventional
semiconductors, are also known.

NOTE
Silicon is used to create most semiconductors commercially. Dozens of other
materials are used, including germanium, gallium arsenide, and silicon carbide. A
pure semiconductor is often called an intrinsic semiconductor. The electronic
properties and the conductivity of a semiconductor can be changed in a controlled
manner by adding very small quantities of other elements, called dopants, to the
intrinsic material. In crystalline silicon typically this is achieved by adding
impurities of boron or phosphorus to the melt and then allowing the melt to solidify
into the crystal. This process is called "doping".

Energy bands and electrical conduction

In classic crystalline semiconductors, the electrons can have energies only within
certain bands (i.e. ranges of levels of energy). Energetically, these bands are located
between the energy of the ground state, corresponding to electrons tightly bound to the
atomic nuclei of the material, and the free electron energy. The latter is the energy required
for an electron to escape entirely from the material. The energy bands each correspond to a
large number of discrete quantum states of the electrons, and most of the states with low
energy (closer to the nucleus) are full, up to a particular band called the valence band.
Semiconductors and insulators are distinguished from metals because the valence band in
them is nearly filled with electrons under usual operating conditions, while very few
(semiconductor) or virtually none (insulator) of them are available in the conduction band,
the band immediately above the valence band.The ease with which electrons in a
semiconductor can be excited from the valence band to the conduction band depends on the
band gap between the bands. The size of this energy bandgap serves as an arbitrary
dividing line (roughly 4 eV) between semiconductors and insulators.As the temperature of
a semiconductor rises above absolute zero, there is more energy in the semiconductor to
spend on lattice vibration and more importantly for us on lifting some electrons into
an energy states of the conduction band. The current-carrying electrons in the conduction
band are known as "free electrons", although they are often simply called "electrons" if
context allows this usage to be clear.
Electrons excited to the conduction band also leave behind electron holes, or
unoccupied states in the valence band. Both the conduction band electrons and the valence
band holes contribute to electrical conductivity. The holes themselves don't actually move,
but a neighboring electron can move to fill the hole, leaving a hole at the place it has just
come from, and in this way the holes appear to move, and the holes behave as if they were
actual positively charged particles.One covalent bond between neighboring atoms in the

solid is ten times stronger than the binding of the single electron to the atom, so freeing the
electron does not imply destruction of the crystal structure.
Holes: electron absence as a charge carrier
The concept of holes can also be applied to metals, where the Fermi level lies within
the conduction band. With most metals the Hall effect indicates electrons are the charge
carriers. However, some metals have a mostly filled conduction band. In these, the Hall
effect reveals positive charge carriers, which are not the ion-cores, but holes. In the case of
a metal, only a small amount of energy is needed for the electrons to find other unoccupied
states to move into, and hence for current to flow. Sometimes even in this case it may be
said that a hole was left behind, to explain why the eledoes not fall back to lower energies:
It cannot find a hole. In the end in both materials electron-phonon scattering and defects
are the dominant causes for resistance.The dependence of the electron energy distribution
on temperature also explains why the conductivity of a semiconductor has a strong
temperature dependency, as a semiconductor operating at lower temperatures will have
fewer available free electrons and holes able to do the work.

Pn Junction Diode As A Rectifier

A rectifier is an electrical device that converts alternating current (AC), which
periodically reverses direction, to direct current (DC), current that flows in only one
direction, a process known as rectification. Rectifiers have many uses including as
components of power supplies and as detectors of radio signals. Rectifiers may be made of
solid state diodes, vacuum tube diodes, mercury arc valves, and other components.
A device which performs the opposite function (converting DC to AC) is known as an
inverter.

When only one diode is used to rectify AC (by blocking the negative or positive portion
of the waveform), the difference between the term diode and the term rectifier is merely
one of usage, i.e., the term rectifier describes a diode that is being used to convert AC to
DC. Almost all rectifiers comprise a number of diodes in a specific arrangement for more
efficiently converting AC to DC than is possible with only one diode. Before the
development of silicon semiconductor rectifiers, vacuum tube diodes and copper(I) oxide or
selenium rectifier stacks were used.
Early radio receivers, called crystal radios, used a "cat's whisker" of fine wire pressing
on a crystal of galena (lead sulfide) to serve as a point-contact rectifier or "crystal
detector". Rectification may occasionally serve in roles other than to generate D.C. current
per se. For example, in gas heating systems flame rectification is used to detect presence of
flame. Two metal electrodes in the outer layer of the flame provide a current path, and
rectification of an applied alternating voltage will happen in the plasma, but only while the
flame is present to generate it.

Half-wave rectification
In half wave rectification, either the positive or negative half of the AC wave is passed,
while the other half is blocked. Because only one half of the input waveform reaches the
output, it is very inefficient if used for power transfer. Half-wave rectification can be
achieved with a single diode in a one-phase supply, or with three diodes in a three-phase
supply.

The output DC voltage of a half wave rectifier can be calculated with the following two
ideal equations:

Full-wave rectification
A full-wave rectifier converts the whole of the input waveform to one of constant polarity
(positive or negative) at its output. Full-wave rectification converts both polarities of the
input waveform to DC (direct current), and is more efficient. However, in a circuit with a
non-center tapped transformer, four diodes are required instead of the one needed for halfwave rectification. Four diodes arranged this way are called a diode bridge or bridge
rectifier:

Graetz bridge rectifier: a full-wave rectifier using 4 diodes.

For single-phase AC, if the transformer is center-tapped, then two diodes back-to-back (i.e.
anodes-to-anode or cathode-to-cathode) can form a full-wave rectifier. Twice as many windings
are required on the transformer secondary to obtain the same output voltage compared to the
bridge rectifier above.

Peak loss
An aspect of most rectification is a loss from the peak input voltage to the peak
output voltage, caused by the built-in voltage drop across the diodes (around 0.7 V for
ordinary silicon p-n-junction diodes and 0.3 V for Schottky diodes). Half-wave rectification
and full-wave rectification using two separate secondaries will have a peak voltage loss of
one diode drop. Bridge rectification will have a loss of two diode drops. This may represent
significant power loss in very low voltage supplies. In addition, the diodes will not conduct
below this voltage, so the circuit is only passing current through for a portion of each halfcycle, causing short segments of zero voltage to appear between each "hump".

Applications
The primary application of rectifiers is to derive DC power from an AC supply.
Virtually all electronic devices require DC, so rectifiers find uses inside the power supplies
of virtually all electronic equipment.
Converting DC power from one voltage to another is much more complicated. One
method of DC-to-DC conversion first converts power to AC (using a device called an
inverter), then use a transformer to change the voltage, and finally rectifies power back to
DC.
Rectifiers also find a use in detection of amplitude modulated radio signals. The signal
may be amplified before detection, but if un-amplified, a very low voltage drop diode must
be used. When using a rectifier for demodulation the capacitor and load resistance must be

carefully matched. Too low a capacitance will result in the high frequency carrier passing
to the output and too high will result in the capacitor just charging and staying charged.
Rectifiers are also used to supply polarised voltage for welding. In such circuits control
of the output current is required and this is sometimes achieved by replacing some of the
diodes in bridge rectifier with thyristors, whose voltage output can be regulated by means
of phase fired controllers.
Thyristors are used in various classes of railway rolling stock systems so that fine
control of the traction motors can be achieved. Gate turn-off thyristors are used to produce
alternating current from a DC supply, for example on the Eurostar Trains to power the
three-phase traction motors.
THE END