Gallium arsenide semiconductor properties

The predictions made by Mendeleev provide an excellent example of how a scientific theory allows far-reaching predictions of as-yet-undiscovered phenomena. Today s chemists still use the periodic table as a predictive tool. For example, modem semiconductor materials such as gallium arsenide were developed in part by predicting that elements in the appropriate rows and columns of the periodic table should have the desired properties. At present, scientists seeking to develop new superconducting materials rely on the periodic table to identify elements that are most likely to confer superconductivity. 

Gallium arsenide exhibits semiconductor properties. It is used in transistors, lasers, solar cells and various high-speed microcircuits. 

A major advantage of the gallium arsenide (GaAs) laser is that it has the electron distribution of a semiconductor The main difference between electrons in semiconductors and electrons in other laser media is that in semiconductors all of the electrons occupy and thus share the entire crystal volume. Although all semiconductors possess this property, not all of them can be used as lasers. See Fig. 4. 

Moderately doped diamond demonstrates almost ideal semiconductor behavior in inert background electrolytes (linear Mott -Schottky plots, photoelectrochemical properties (see below), etc.), which provides evidence for band edge pinning at the semiconductor surface. By comparison in redox electrolytes, a metal-like behavior is observed with the band edges unpinned at the surface. This phenomenon, although not yet fully understood, has been observed with numerous semiconductor electrodes (e.g. silicon, gallium arsenide, and others) [113], It must be associated with chemical interaction between semiconductor material and redox system, which results in a large and variable Helmholtz potential drop. 

Generally speaking most of the shallow impurity levels which we shall encounter are based on substitution by an impurity atom for one of the host atoms. An atom must also occupy an interstitial site to be a shallow impurity. In fact, interstitial lithium in silicon has been reported to act as a shallow donor level. All of the impurities associated with shallow impurity levels are not always located at the substitutional sites, but a part of the impurities are at interstitial sites. Indeed, about 90% of group-VA elements and boron implanted into Si almost certainly take up substitutional sites i.e., they replace atoms of the host lattice, but the remaining atoms of 10% are at interstitial sites. About 30% of the implanted atoms of group-IIIA elements except boron are located at either a substitutional site or an interstitial site, and the other 40% atoms exist at unspecified sites in Si [3]. The location of the impurity atoms in the semiconductors substitutional, interstitial, or other site, is a matter of considerable concern to us, because the electric property depends on whether they are at the substitutional, interstitial, or other sites. The number of possible impurity configurations is doubled when we consider even substitutional impurities in a compound semiconductor such as ZnO and gallium arsenide instead of an elemental semiconductor such as Si [4],... 

Gallium arsenide is a compound semiconductor with a combination of physical properties that has made it an attractive candidate for many electronic applications. From a comparison of various physical and electronic properties of GaAs with those of Si (Table 4), the advantages of GaAs over Si can be readily ascertained. 

Gallium arsenide is also used to make transistors. A transistor is a device used to control the flow of electricity in a circuit. Gallium arsenide has many of the properties of a semiconductor. A semiconductor is a material that conducts an electrical current, but not as well as a metal, such as silver or copper. 

---