Class 2
18th March 2017
Graphene
• Sheet of pure carbon rings one atom thick
• Made by peeling layers from graphite
[1]
Advantages of Graphene
• Conducts electrons 100 times easier than silicon
• Two dimensional
• Easier to control electron flow
• Allows for smaller devices
[2]
Problems
• Not easily produced
• Does not switch like other semiconductors
• Just beginning to be studied
[3]
Possible Uses
• Coating for LCD screens
• Computer chips
• Transistors
• Capacitors
Semiconductor with Graphene
• Graphene – a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon with highly desirable
electrical properties, flexibility and strength – shows great promise
for future electronics, advanced solar cells, protective coatings and
other uses, and combining it with other materials could extend its
range even further.
• The Rice lab of chemist James Tour found simple methods to reduce
three kinds of coal into graphene quantum dots (GQDs), microscopic
discs of atom-thick graphene oxide that could be used in medical
imaging as well as sensing, electronic and photovoltaic applications.
There are many ways to make GQDs now, but most are expensive and
produce very small quantities.
• Manipulating graphene's wrinkles could lead to graphene
semiconductors
Crystal Structure
We treat the semiconductor as a crystalline
material,
consisting of atoms arranged in a highly ordered
pattern, called lattice .
Though all materials may not be necessarily crystalline
(could be either quasi crystalline or amorphous), but in
the short-range or at the microscopic level, they are
crystalline.
Once we treat the lattice as a periodic potential, we see
remarkable properties that explain the physical nature
of semiconductors
We will see here
how the atoms are arranged
how the electrons behave in the lattice, which helps
to understand the properties of semiconductor.
the concept of electrons and holes and how their
occupancy probability alters the properties of
semiconductors.
the transport mechanisms of charge carriers, which
eventually come under the drift and diffusion
processes.
Crystal Structure
• Some materials are disordered, many can be understood from the fact
that the atoms are periodically arranged.
• So instead of thinking about 1023 atoms/cm3, one can think about few
atoms, together with the underlying symmetry of the crystal.
• For the moment we are going to assume
– that the crystals are not infinite and
• they do not have any defects in them
• Structure is divided to the lattice and the basis
– The lattice is an infinite array of points arranged in space so that each
point has identical surroundings. This means, you can go to any lattice
point and it will have the same environment as the others.
– The basis means atoms attached to each lattice point.
• Nearest neighbor lattice points are separated from each other by
the 3 fundamental translation vectors of the particular 3-
dimensional lattice, which we generally write as a, b and c.
Then any of the lattice points are linked by a lattice vector given by:
T = n1 a + n2 b + n3 c (where n1, n2, n3 are integers)
This is the arrangement in 2D
The basis of the crystal has been just the specific arrangement of atoms
attached to each lattice point. So, for instance, we can have a three atom basis
attached to the above lattice to give the crystal structure below
Two dimensional representation of lattice and basis, indicating the lattice vector
Primitive Cell
• The primitive cell of a lattice, which is the volume associated with
a single lattice point.
• How to find the primitive cell using the following procedure:
– Draw lattice vectors from one lattice point to all adjacent lattice points
– Construct planes normal to the above vectors which divide the vectors by half.
– Find the volume around the lattice point enclosed by these planes.
This type of primitive cell is
called a Wigner-Seitz cell .As
seen in figurer, fist figure
represents the real space
lattice and figure (iii)
represents a unit cell
contained in the reciprocal
Construction of the Wigner-Seitz cell (identical
space with a specific name,
to the first Brillouin zone in the reciprocal
Wigner-Seitz cell or the first
lattice). First draw lines to the nearest
Brillouin zone.
neighbourhood (2)draw perpendicular bisectors
and the area enclosed is now called as first WS
cell. (iii) Each atom is now enclosed by its WS
cell
(a) Simple Cubic, (b) body cantered cubic (bcc) and (c) Face centred cubic (fcc) crystal
•A crystal is defined as basis plus lattice.
• Among all crystal types cubic class of crystals is of much importance in semiconductors.
• Cubic crystal contains three different varieties, depending on the atomic arrangement
simple cubic, body-centered cubic (BCC) and face-centered cubic (FCC) •. Simple cubic
contains atoms at each corner (total eight), however eight other unit cells share each
atom.
•Therefore, eight corner atoms effectively contribute one atom to the unit cell.
• Both BCC and FCC are formed by adding extra lattice points to the unit cell, either in the
center of the cell or at the center of each face of the cube respectively.
• The cubic unit cell is then no longer primitive, but is still more convenient to work with
Identify individual planes or surfaces of the crystal
• Surfaces or the planes through the crystal are described by considering the intercepts of the
planes along x,y and z coordinates.
• In fig lattice planes are shown along axes only. Atoms are arranged in 3D space and say the
intercepts for the respective axes are 3, 2 and 1.
The reciprocal of the intercepts is therefore (1⁄3 ,1⁄2 ,
1⁄1), by multiplying with the common denominator
(which 6) we obtain (2, 3, 6). This means the plane
in the figure represent the lattice plane referred to
(2, 3, 6). These integers are well known as Miller
indices and are generally represented as (h,k,l).
Miller indices of important planes of a cubic cell are
given given in figure 2.7,
Dynamics of electrons in periodic potential
• To see how an electron(s) behaves in a crystalline environment, we treat the
electrons in a simple periodic potential.
• each atom contains several electrons and they occupy a specific state. In
such cases, Schrödinger equation effectively explains the probability of
finding an electron, and also one can easily extend it to many electron
systems.
• EXAMPLE
Example
• Isolated carbon atoms contain 6 electrons, which occupy the 1s, 2s and 2p
orbital in pairs. Energies of an electron occupying the 2s and 2p orbital are
indicated in the figure . As the lattice constant is reduced, there is an
overlap of the electron wave functions occupying adjacent atoms. This
leads to the splitting of the energy levels, which is consistent with the
Pauli’s exclusion principle. The splitting results in an energy
band containing 2N states in the 2s band and 6N states in the 2p band,
where N is the number of atoms in the crystal. A further reduction causes
the 2s and 2p energy bands to merge and split again into two bands
containing 4N states each.
• Now the lower band is completely filled with electrons at
zero temperature, which is labeled as the valence band.
• The upper band, which is empty, is the conduction band.
• We can also use the example of Si. Each atom of Si has
14 energy levels, corresponding to 14 electrons. Now
there are 1022 atoms in a cubic centimeter. Now imagine
the complexity of the energy levels!!
• There are some regions where electron propagation is
completely forbidden, and such gap is called as forbidden
gap.
Band gaps in semiconductors
The energy band diagrams of common semiconductors
The maximum of the valence band (at Γ) does not
coincide with the minimum of the conduction
band . In other words, the valence band has a
minimum at a value of k (k1) , which is different
from that of the k value (k2) for the conduction
band minimum.
For an electron to excite from the valence band
to the conduction band, we need a change in
momentum ( Δk = k1-k2). This is the so-
called indirect band gap
This makes such semiconductors more unlikely
for a source of light, because the requirement
of both the energy and momentum in optical
process leads to photon involvement
Energy band diagram of silicon (Si), Germanium
(Ge) and Gallium Arsenide (GaAs).
we observe the band structure of GaAs, both maximum of
valance and minimum of conduction band are on the same k
vector, that is Γ.
That means there is no requirement of momentum change to
produce a transition between valance band to the conduction
band. Such materials are called direct band gap materials.
These direct band gap materials are efficient sources of light,
such as LEDs
Holes and effective mass concept
• semiconductors are different from metals and insulators because they contain
"almost-empty" conduction band and "almost-full" valence band
• This implies the transport of carriers must be seen from both bands.
• we introduce holes in "almost-full" valence band. These are not present in the
semiconductor but simply, they are missing electrons spaces during the electron
transport.
• Electrons are the only charge carriers existing in semiconductors
• Holes behave as particles with the same properties as the electrons would have
same occupying states, but they carry a positive charge.
• When certain energy is given to an electron in almost filled valence band, the
departure of electron creates a hole, giving chance for another electron to
occupy.
• It means that the energy of the hole is associated with the rise of electron
energy. The electron and hole concept is schematically shown
The effective mass concept in light of electrons and holes.
• We already know that the electrons in energy bands, behave differently to that of free-electrons. For general
purpose, we can write the conduction and valance effective masses at their band minimum as
for electrons and
for hole.
The conduction band Energy in k space is
where Ec is the conduction band and Ev is valance band energy.
The conduction band effective mass is directly related to the band gap energy E g.. The smaller is the band gap,
the smaller is the effective mass .
The band gaps of few semiconductors at the room temperature
are given in the table.
With the temperature the band gap substantially varies. This is
shown graphically in fig.
The empirical relation of band gap vs temperature is
where α and β are constants.
The energy bands are a mix of energy levels of individual atoms of the semiconductor.
With the help of Schrödinger’s equation (through sophisticated mathematical algorithms)
electron motion can be solved and one can obtain energy–momentum relation or simply,
E-k band diagram.
Though, throughout our semiconductor physics class, we are mostly interested in the energy
levels at the top of the valence band and bottom of the conduction band, which lie in the
vicinity of the band edge.
However, every semiconductor has uniquely had its own band structure.
Semiconductors can be broadly divided into direct band gap and indirect band gap
semiconductors, depending on the conduction band minimum position with respect to
valence band maximum.
As schematically represented in figure 2.22, we can see two kinds of conduction minima
( one at k=0 and another at k≠0). Similarly, at valance maximum we can see two closely
connected bands (or curves) namely, Heavy Hole (HH) Light Hole (LH), and one at little far
called Split-off (SO) .