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Commit e0f9b11f authored by Kostas Vilkelis's avatar Kostas Vilkelis :flamingo:
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Revamp the introduction

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......@@ -35,32 +35,45 @@ m_h, m_e = 1, .5
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In the previous lecture, we learned how to deal with partially filled bands.
The concept of electrons/holes established the foundations needed to understand semiconductors.
We saw that the filling in semiconductors can be controlled by tuning the temperature.
However, Fermi level control through temperature is still far too constrained and leads to equal electron and hole densities $n_e = n_h$.
The full utility of semiconductors is achieved through another Fermi level control method - **doping**.
In today's lecture, we will take a look at how doping allows the fine control of Fermi level and the practical applications that come with it.
## Adding an impurity to semiconductor
* Typical semiconductors are group IV (Si, Ge, GaAs).
* Unfilled shell of group V atom (donor) has 1 extra electron and its nucleus 1 extra proton
* Group III atom (acceptor) lacks 1 electron and 1 nucleus charge
Extra electron (or extra hole) is attracted to the extra charge of the nucleus.
In H the energy levels are:
$$ E_n = - \frac{me^4}{8\pi^2\hbar^3\varepsilon^2_0n^2} = -R_E /n^2= -\frac{13.6\text{eV}}{n^2}$$
Bohr radius (size of the ground state wave function): $4 \pi \varepsilon_0 \hbar^2/m_{\mathrm{e}} e^2$
In a semiconductor $m\to m_{\text{eff}}$, $\epsilon_0 \to \epsilon\epsilon_0$.
An impurity creates a very weakly bound state:
$$E = -\frac{m_e}{m\varepsilon^2} R_E = -0.01 \text{eV (in Ge)}$$
$r = 4$ nm (vs $r = 0.5$ Å in H).
Binding energy smaller than room temperature (0.026 eV).
So a donor adds an extra state at $E_D$ (close to the bottom of the conduction band) and an extra electron.
Likewise an acceptor adds an extra state at $E_A$ (close to the top of the valence band) and an extra hole.
In order to understand doping, we need to remember some basic chemistry.
Most semiconductors are made up of group IV elements (Si, Ge) or binary compounds between group III-V elements (GaAs).
In both cases, there are 4 valance electrons per atom.
If we want to increase the average number of electrons per atom, we can add a group V element that has an extra valance electron.
We therefore refer to group V elements as **donor** impurities.
However, the extra donor electron is bound to the impurity because group V elements also have an extra proton.
In order to estimate the binding strength, we treat the lattice as a background and only consider the system of an electron bound to a proton.
We immediately recognize this system as a Hydrogen model with energy levels
$$
E_n = - \frac{m_e e^4}{8\pi^2\hbar^3\varepsilon^2_0n^2} = -R_E /n^2= -\frac{13.6\text{eV}}{n^2}.
$$
The extent of the ground wavefunctions is given by the Bohr radius:
$$
r_B = 4 \pi \varepsilon_0 \hbar^2/m_{\mathrm{e}} e^2.
$$
However, the extra valance electron moves in the semiconductor's conduction band and not free space.
Therefore, the electron's mass is the conduction band's effective mass.
Furthermore, the interactions between the electron and proton are screened by the lattice.
As a result, we need to introduce the following substitutions: $m_e \to m_e^*$, $\epsilon_0 \to \epsilon\epsilon_0$.
We thus estimate the energy of the bound state created by the impurity:
$$E = -\frac{m_e^*}{m_e \varepsilon^2} R_E = -0.01 \text{eV (in Ge)}$$
$r_B = 4$ nm (vs $r_B = 0.5$ Å in H).
The electron is very weakly bound to the impurity! At room temperature (0.026 eV), the donor electron is easily thermally excited into the conduction band.
On the other hand, we can add a group III element to reduce the average number of electrons in the system.
Group III elements lacks 1 electron and 1 proton and are therefore known as **acceptors**.
We treat the absence of an electron as a hole and the lacking proton as an effective negative charge.
As a result, we once again end up with a Hydrogen model, except this time the charges are flipped (hole circles around a negative center).
That allows us to use the previous results and to conclude that an acceptor creates a weakly bound state above the valance band.
### Density of states with donors and acceptors
......@@ -85,11 +98,21 @@ ax.set_xticklabels(['$E_V$', '$E_C$', '$E_A$', '$E_D$'])
draw_classic_axes(ax, xlabeloffset=.2)
```
All donor/acceptor states at the same energy:
$$g_A(E) = N_A \delta(E-E_A),\quad g_D(E) = N_D \delta(E- E_D)$$
How large can $N_D/N_A$ be? The distance between donors should be such that the states don't overlap, so the distance must be much larger than 4 nm. Therefore **maximal** concentration of donors before donor band merges with conduction band is $N_D \lesssim (1/4\textrm{nm})^3 \sim 10^{-5}\ll N_C$.
In order to model **multiple** donor/acceptor states, we assume that they are all degenerate at the binding energy.
Therefore, we model the density of states of donors/acceptors as a Dirac delta function:
$$
g_D(E) = N_D \delta(E- E_D), \quad g_A(E) = N_A \delta(E-E_A),
$$
where N_D and N_A are donor and acceptor concentrations respectively.
The binding energies of the donor and acceptor are defined as $E_A$ and $E_D$.
How good is this Dirac delta approximation?
That depends on the concentrations.
If we keep on adding impurities, then at some point the weakly bound states will begin to overlap.
The overlap will create an effective tight-binding model that leads to a formation of an "impurity" band which breaks our approximation.
We must therefore prevent the overlap of impurity bound states.
From the previous section, we know that the extent of the bound state is roughly 4 nm and thus the distance between impurity atoms cannot exceed that.
As a result, the impurity concentration is bounded to $N_D \lesssim (1/4\textrm{nm})^3 \sim 10^{-5}.
## Number of carriers
......
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