MM5017: Electronic materials, devices, and fabrication

Assignment 1
1. A pure semiconductor has a band gap of 1.25 eV. The effective masses
are me = 0.1me for electrons and mh = 0.5me for holes, where me is
the free electron mass. Find the following at 300K
(a) Concentration of electron and holes
(b) Fermi energy
(c) Electrical conductivity
Take e = 1400 cm2 V 1 s1 and h = 400 cm2 V 1 s1 .
2. Does doping always cause an increase in conductivity? Show that conductivity can be lowered by doping. Calculate this lowest conductivity that can be obtained and the atomic concentration and type of
dopant needed to achieve this. Take e = 1350 cm2 V 1 s1 and
h = 450 cm2 V 1 s1 and ni = 1010 cm3 . Atomic weight of Si = 28
gmol1 and density is 2.33 gcm3 .
3. A GaAs device is doped with a donor concentration of 3 1015 cm3 .
For the device to operate properly, the intrinsic carrier concentration
must remain less than 5 percent of the total electron concentration.
What is the maximum temperature that the device can operate? Take
Eg = 1.43 eV , Nc = 4.7 1017 cm3 and Nv = 7 1018 cm3 and
independent of temperature.
4. Si atoms, at a concentration of 1010 cm3 are added to GaAs. Assume
that the Si atoms are fully ionized and that 5 percent replace Ga atoms
and 95 percent replace As atoms. Take temperature to be 300 K.
(a) Determine the donor and acceptor concentrations
(b) Calculate the electron and hole concentrations and the positions
of the Fermi level with respect to EF i .
(c) How will you answer to (a) and (b) change if 95 percent of Si go
to the Ga sites and 5 percent go to the As sites.
Take ni of GaAs to be 1.8 106 cm3 , Nc = 4.7 1017 cm3 and
Nv = 7 1018 cm3 . Band gap at 300 K is 1.43 eV.

5. The Bohr radius, according to the hydrogenic model, is given by

a0 =

0 h2
me e2

For a n-type dopant in Si, calculate the effective Bohr radius. Take
r = 11.9 and me = 0.20me . Use this to calculate a minimum
concentration at which the dopant energy levels overlap to give a degenerate semiconductor.
6. A Si sample has been doped with 1015 cm3 P atoms. The donor energy
level for P in Si is 0.045 eV below the conduction band edge energy.
(a) Where is the Fermi level at 0 K?
(b) At what temperature is the donor 1% ionized? Where is the Fermi
level located at this temperature?
(c) At what temperature does the Fermi level lie in the donor level?
(d) Estimate the minimum temperature when the sample behaves as
intrinsic.
(e) Sketch schematically the change in Fermi level with temperature.
Take the density of states at the conduction and the valence band to
be 1019 cm3 and independent of temperature. The density of states
at the donor level is 5 1014 cm3 . The band gap of Si is 1.10 eV and
is also temperature independent.
7. An n-type Si sample has been doped with 1 1017 P atoms cm3 . The
drift mobilities of holes and electrons in Si at 300 K depend on the
total concentration of dopants Ndopant as follows:
1252
cm2 V 1 s1
1 + 6.984 1018 Ndopant
407
cm2 V 1 s1
h = 54.3 +
1 + 3.745 1018 Ndopant
e = 88 +

(a) Calculate the room temperature conductivity.

(b) Calculate the necessary acceptor doping that is required to make
this sample p-type with approximately the same conductivity.