1 ELECTRONS AND HOLES IN SILICON

Semiconductor device modelling

Unit I Basic Device Physics

1 Electrons and holes in silicon

1.1 Energy Band theory
A useful way to visualize the difference between conductors, insulators and semiconductors is to plot the
available energies for electrons in the materials.
It has been proved experimentally that many of the metals and semiconductors are crystalline in
nature. The crystalline structure consists of regular repetition of a basic structure in 3 dimensions. It is
a well known fact that the materials having the same behavior are placed in the same group in periodic
table. Group I elements are Alkali metals. Group II elements are gases. But Group IV elements are not
having the same physical characteristics. This apparent anomaly is explained by energy band theory.
Group IV includes five elements viz., Carbon(C), Silicon(Si), Germanium(Ge), Tin(Sn), Lead(Pb).
The following table represents the electronic configuration of the IV A Group elements.

Element Atomic Number Electronic Configuration

Carbon(C) 6 1s2 2s2 2p2 (Insulator)
Silicon(Si) 14 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p2 (Semiconductor)
Germanium(Ge) 32 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p6 3d10 4s2 4p2 (Semiconductor)
Tin(Sn) 50 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p6 3d10 4s2 4p6 4d10 5s2 5p2 (Metal)
Lead(Pb) 82 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p6 3d10 4s2 4p6 4d10 4f 14 5s2 5p6 5d10 6s2 6p2 (Metal)

Table 1: Electronic configuration of IV A Group elements.

In order to explain about energy band theory let us consider a crystal with N number of atoms(>
1023 /m3 ) and also assume that the distance between atoms can be varied without effecting the funda-
mental crystal structure. From the Table.1 it is evident that each element contains two s electrons and
two p electrons. Then a crystal contains 2N s Electrons and 2N p electrons. That means 2N s electrons
are filled in 2N s states. But only 2N electrons are filled in 6N p states.
When the distance between atoms is decreased(Right to Left as in diagram) every atom will exert
an electric force on its neighbors. Then all the 2N s states and 2N p states merge and appear like band
rather appearing as an energy level. Now the available states is 2N s + 2N p = 8N states. Out of this
4N (2N s + 2N p) states are completely filled and the remaining 4N states are completely unfilled. The
band containing energy levels of filled states is called as valence band and the band of energy levels
with completely unfilled states is known as Conduction Band. The formation of Valence and Conduction
bands takes place at a point known as Crystal Lattice Spacing,a0 . If the distance between atoms is
further reduced the crystal may breakdown. The gap between valence and conduction bands is known as
Forbidden energy gap, EG . The following diagrams illustrate the energy band theory.

Figure 1: Energy band diagram

Material by Dr.B.T.Krishna 1
REFERENCES REFERENCES

The energy band diagrams of Metal, Insulator and Semiconductor are shown in Fig.2. In case of an
Insulator the value of EG will be of the order of 6eV . So none of the electrons cross from valance band
to conduction band so the insulator will not conduct. For a conductor the valence and conduction bands
overlap each other and hence this material conducts at any temperature. But in case of semiconductor,
EG ≈ 1eV . At low temperatures there will be no current conduction and the material conducts at high
temperatures and hence the name semiconductor.

Figure 2: Energy band diagram: (a) metal, (b) semiconductor, (c) insulator

References
[1] Yuan Taur, Tak.H.Ning, Fundamentals of Modern VLSI Devices, Cambridge University Press, 1998
[2] Jacob Millman and C.Halkias, Integrated Electronics,Tata McGraw Hill edition,Newdelhi, 2001.

Material by Dr.B.T.Krishna 2