Physics of Semiconductors Essay

New sciences have also contributed to technology, as in the theoretical preparation for the invention of the steam engine. In the 20th century, innovations in semiconductor technology increased the performance and decreased the cost of electronic materials and devices by a factor of a million, an achievement unparalleled in the history of any technology.”

Thomas Edison created the light bulb using electricity in 1878. The light bulb made it possible to create light at night without the hazard and struggle with a candle and matches-just a flick and the light was on. It could also be used to send signals or messages with Morse code, or a light to show when a machine was one, etc. Even now people use the light bulb for many things. Almost every household in the US has lights now. This invention could be one of the most

Conductor – conductor is an object or type of material that allows the flow of electrical current in one or more directions. The electrons move easily to the other side, away from the object

This concept can be explained using the term band gap, a property that is characteristic of semiconductors. The band gap can be defined as the difference in energy between the valence and conduction band and is typically in the range of 1-3 eV for semiconductors. In bulk materials the energy bands are a continuum of energy levels arising from the overlapping of the atomic orbital‘s due to the large number of molecules. When a semiconductor is brought to the Nano scale, containing lesser number of molecules, the quantized energy levels become distinct. Thus the addition or removal of atoms significantly changes the energy levels within the band making the band gap size dependent.

The plow was a very important invention. Around 600 A.D. the plow led food production to its all-time high. Another invention that helped with supplies around 787 A.D. was the tidal mill. The tidal mill would collect and store water during a high tide. Around the 9th century the hour glass was invented. The hour glass helped sailors tell time while out at sea. The blast furnace was invented around 12th century A.D. The slag that was produced from the furnace was used to invent liquor. Eyeglasses were invented around the 13th century. They were used mostly for reading. They also wore them while spinning wool. The spinning wheel they used was invented around the 13th century also. The printing press of Gutenberg was invented around the 15th century. This increased the rate of printing to 250 sheets per hour. These inventions were very important to how things are

The noble gases are the gaseous elements helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, and radon, in group 18 of the periodic table. Additionally, they are considered the most unreactive of the elements, due to the fact that the valence electrons are all “full”, thus making the group the most stable, as well. When it comes to the periodic trends, the noble gases have the some of the lowest densities because they are gaseous elements, meaning they state of matter consisting of particles that have neither a definite volume nor definite shape. The lack of electronegativity of the noble gasses is based off of their group, which already has a full outer shell, meaning they do not attract any electrons.

Semiconductors allow the flow of both ions and electrons through the sample but not completely free; and its

Atoms have a tendency to either lose, gain, or share electrons until the atoms is surrounded by eight valence electrons. For an atom to have a full valence shell of electrons a chemical bond will share or transfer electrons in order for this to happen. The three types of transfer between electrons and elements are ionic, covalent, or metallic.

Semiconductors such as silicon and germanium were able to display properties of both conductors and insulators, which made them useful in electronic operations. Germanium was initially used partly because it was easy to work with, but also because silicon was brittle, hard to purify, and unable to be mass produced. In turn, Germanium transistors were invented by John Burdeen, Walter Brattan, and William Shockley in 1947 at Bell Labs, replacing the need for costly and inefficient vacuum tubes (Lecuyer). The transistor was much smaller, more reliable, and provided the same important features of the vacuum tube (“The History of the Integrated Circuit”). Nonetheless, germanium still prompted a problem since it was unstable at high temperatures (“Germanium Transistors”). Silicon’s stability called for the development of a silicon transistor, which was achieved by Texas Instruments in 1954, giving TI a firm reputation that attracted the attention of many emerging engineers, who one of which, was Jack Kilby (Reid

Nonmetals as opposed to metals are not good conductors of electricity and heat, they are gases at room temperature, and nonmetals tend to be brittle. The exemption of non metals are carbon, phosphorus, sulfur, and selenium are nonmetals however they are solid at room temperature rather than gaseous. Finally, metalloids have combined properties of both metals and nonmetals however all metalloids are solid at room temperature.

It takes a certain amount of energy to cause a metal to emit an electron.

The semiconductor

The band theory gives explanations of how Semiconductors differ from metals because as the temperature increases the conductivity increases. The Band Theory considers that for

Introduction The Quantum Theory was the second of two theories which drastically changed the way we look at our physical world today, the first being Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Although both theories revolutionized the world of physics, the Quantum Theory required a period of over three decades to develop, while the Special Theory of Relativity was created in a single year. The development of the Quantum Theory began in 1887 when a German physicist, Heinrich Hertz, was testing Maxwell’s Theory of Electromagnetic Waves.

Now we will move onto other materials that are involved with electronics. The next group of materials that will be discussed are insulators. An insulator is a material that does not conduct electricity at all but will resist or stop it from traveling further. An insulating atom has eight electrons in its valance shell which makes this shell complete. Eight is the most electrons that any atoms can have in their valance shell this is why these are called insulators, no more electrons can fit in the valance shell of these atoms.