Semiconductors electric mobility

Compared to anorganic semiconductors electric mobilities in conjugated polymers are generally low. 

A few selected techniques that are representative of recent advances are described as examples of the much broader field of semiconductor electrical characterization. In particular, resistivity, carrier concentration, junction depth, generation/recombination lifetime, deep level transient spectroscopy and NOSFET mobility measurements are discussed. The importance of non-contacting methods is stressed and recent trends in this direction are outlined. This paper serves as an introduction to some of the following papers in this volume. 

The proportional coefficient (sometimes denoted fi) is the intrinsic electric mobility of the charge carrier expressed in V m s We can express the overall flux of all the electric charge carriers through the semiconductor, /, in m fs , which is the summation of the flux of the holes and of the electrons ... 

The application of a small external electric field A to a semiconductor results in a net average velocity component of the carriers (electrons or holes) called the drift velocity, v. The coefficient of proportionality between E and is known as the carrier mobility p. At higher fields, where the drift velocity becomes comparable to the thennal... 

In tenns of the carrier mobility, the electrical conductivity c of an n type semiconductor can be written as... 

Charge carriers in a semiconductor are always in random thermal motion with an average thermal speed, given by the equipartion relation of classical thermodynamics as m v /2 = 3KT/2. As a result of this random thermal motion, carriers diffuse from regions of higher concentration. Applying an electric field superposes a drift of carriers on this random thermal motion. Carriers are accelerated by the electric field but lose momentum to collisions with impurities or phonons, ie, quantized lattice vibrations. This results in a drift speed, which is proportional to the electric field = p E where E is the electric field in volts per cm and is the electron s mobility in units of cm /Vs. 

Studies of double carrier injection and transport in insulators and semiconductors (the so called bipolar current problem) date all the way back to the 1950s. A solution that relates to the operation of OLEDs was provided recently by Scott et al. [142], who extended the work of Parmenter and Ruppel [143] to include Lange-vin recombination. In order to obtain an analytic solution, diffusion was ignored and the electron and hole mobilities were taken to be electric field-independent. The current-voltage relation was derived and expressed in terms of two independent boundary conditions, the relative electron contributions to the current at the anode, jJfVj, and at the cathode, JKplJ. 

One has to consider that in Eqs. (9.15)—(9.17) the mobility /t occurs as a parameter. As it will be pointed out below, // shows a characteristic dependence on the applied electric field typical for the type of organic material and for its intrinsic charge transport mechanisms. For the hole mobility, //, Blom et al. obtained a similar log///,( ) const. [E dependency [88, 891 from their device modeling for dialkoxy PPV as it is often observed for organic semiconductors (see below). 

The high electrical conductivity of metals as well as the high electron (and hole) mobility of inorganic covalently bound semiconductors have both been clarified by the band theory [I9, which slates that the discrele energy levels of individual atoms widen in the solid stale into alternatively allowed and forbidden bands. The... 

FIGURE 3.46 In a p-type semiconductor, the electron-poor dopant atoms effectively remove electrons from the valence band, and the "holes" that result (blue band at the top of the valence band) enable the remaining electrons to become mobile and conduct electricity through the valence band. 

All metals conduct electricity on account of the mobility of the electrons that bind the atoms together. Ionic, molecular, and network solids are typically electrical insulators or semiconductors (see Sections 3.f3 and 3.14), but there are notable exceptions, such as high-temperature superconductors, which are ionic or ceramic solids (see Box 5.2), and there is currently considerable interest in the electrical conductivity ol some organic polymers (see Box 19.1). 

Zinc oxide is a thoroughly studied typical semiconductor of n-type with the width of forbidden band of 3.2 eV, dielectric constant being 10. Centers responsible for the dope electric conductivity in ZnO are provided by interstitial Zn atoms as well as by oxygen vacancies whose total concentration vary within limits 10 - 10 cm. Electron mobility in monocrystals of ZnO at ambient temperature amounts to 200 cm -s". The depth of donor levels corresponding to interstitial Zn and oxygen vacancies under the bottom of conductivity band is several hundredth of electron volt [18]. 

If the above comparison of the properties of metal atoms with those of hydrogen deposited on the surface of a solid body (semiconductor) is correct, the effect of their adsorption on electric properties of semiconductor oxide films will be similar to features accompanying adsorption of hydrogen atoms. The atoms of hydrogen are very mobile and, in contrast to metal atoms, are capable of surface recombination resulting in formation of saturated molecules with strong covalent bond. 

The method of semiconductor sensors allows one to determine the flux of atoms, to which the sensor was exposed, from electric conductivity measurements (provided coefficients of ionization and reflection of oxygen atoms from zinc oxide films are known). In other words, the sensor technique can be used in this case as an absolute method [21]. Indeed, variation of electric conductivity of a semiconductor film Acrpi due to adsorption is known to be caused by variation of carrier concentration An in the film, rather than by variation of their mobility / [21] ... 

Some of the major questions that semiconductor characterization techniques aim to address are the concentration and mobility of carriers and their level of compensation, the chemical nature and local structure of electrically-active dopants and their energy separations from the VB or CB, the existence of polytypes, the overall crystalline quality or perfection, the existence of stacking faults or dislocations, and the effects of annealing upon activation of electrically-active dopants. For semiconductor alloys, that are extensively used to tailor optoelectronic properties such as the wavelength of light emission, the question of whether the solid-solutions are ideal or exhibit preferential clustering of component atoms is important. The next... 

TABLE 7.1 Electrical Conductivity and Mobility of Charge Carriers in Metals, Band-like Semiconductors, and Hopping Semiconductors... 

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