Micro and Nanoelectronics
ELL732
Lecture 8
Dhiman Mallick
Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi
1
Semester I – 2024 - 2025
Degenerate and Nondegenerate Semiconductors
If the concentration of dopant atoms added is small when compared to the density of host or semiconductor
atoms:
Impurities introduce discrete, noninteracting donor energy states in the n-type semiconductor and discrete,
noninteracting acceptor states in the p-type semiconductor - Non-degenerate Semiconductor.
If the impurity concentration increases, the discrete donor/acceptor energy states will split into a band of
energies and may overlap the bottom/top of the conduction/valence band – Degenerate Semiconductor.
Energy-band diagrams for degenerately doped (a) n-type and (b) p-type semiconductors.
Electron concentration versus temperature
Variation of EF with Doping Concentration
Variation of EF with Temperature
Freeze Out
Energy-band diagram at T=0K for (a) n-type and (b) p-type semiconductors.
No electrons from the donor state are thermally elevated into the conduction band; this effect is called freeze-out. Similarly,
when no electrons from the valance band are elevated into the acceptor states, the effect is also called freeze-out.
Complete Ionization
Energy-band diagrams showing complete ionization of (a) donor states and (b) acceptor states.
Between T = 0K, freeze-out, and T = 300K, complete ionization, we have partial ionization of donor or acceptor atoms.
Compensated Semiconductor
• A compensated semiconductor is one that contains both donor and acceptor impurity atoms in the same
region.
• A compensated semiconductor can be formed, for example, by diffusing acceptor impurities into an n-type
material or by diffusing donor impurities into a p-type material.
• An n-type compensated semiconductor occurs when Nd > Na, and a p-type compensated semiconductor
occurs when Na > Nd.
• If Na = Nd, we have a completely compensated semiconductor that has the characteristics of an intrinsic
material.
Compensated Semiconductor
Energy-band diagram of a compensated
semiconductor showing ionized and un-ionized
donors and acceptors.
Compensated Semiconductor
Thermal Equilibrium Electron Concentration:
Thermal Equilibrium Hole Concentration:
References
• Semiconductor Physics and Devices- Basic Principles by
Donald A. Neamen
• Solid State Electronic Devices by Ben G. Streetman and
Sanjay Kumar Banerjee
• Physics of Semiconductor Devices by S.M. Sze and Kwok K.
Ng
• State-of-the-art Research Papers
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