A semiconductor is a solid whose electrical conductivity can be controlled over a wide range, either permanently or dynamically. Semiconductors are tremendously important technologically and economically. Silicon is the most commercially important semiconductor, though dozens of others are important as well.
Semiconductor devices, electronic components made of semiconductor materials, are essential in modern electrical devices, from computers to cellular phones to digital audio players.
Overview
Semiconductors are very similar to insulators. The two categories of solids differ primarily in that insulators have larger band gaps - energies that electrons must acquire to be free to flow. In semiconductors at room temperature, just as in insulators, very few electrons gain enough thermal energy to leap the band gap, which is necessary for conduction. For this reason, pure semiconductors and insulators, in the absence of applied fields, have roughly similar electrical properties. The smaller bandgaps of semiconductors, however, allow for many other means besides temperature to control their electrical properties.
Semiconductors' intrinsic electrical properties are very often permanently modified by introducing impurities, in a process known as doping. Usually it is reasonable to approximate that each impurity atom adds one electron or one "hole" (a concept to be discussed later) that may flow freely. Upon the addition of a sufficiently large proportion of dopants, semiconductors conduct electricity nearly as well as metals. Depending on kind of the impurity, a region of semiconductor can have more electrons or holes, and then it is called N-type or P-type semiconductor, respectively. Junctions between regions of N- and P-type semiconductors have built-in electric fields, which cause electrons and holes to escape from them, and are critical to semiconductor device operation. Also, a density difference of impurities produces in the region small electric field which is used to accelerate non-equilibrium electrons or holes in it.
In addition to permanent modification through doping, the electrical properties of semiconductors are often dynamically modified by applying electric fields. The ability to control conductivity in small and well-defined regions of semiconductor material, both statically through doping and dynamically through the application of electric fields, has led to the development of a broad range of semiconductor devices, like transistors. Semiconductor devices with dynamically controlled conductivity are the building blocks of integrated circuits, like the microprocessor. These "active" semiconductor devices are combined with simpler passive components, such as semiconductor capacitors and resistors, to produce a variety of electronic devices.
In certain semiconductors, when electrons fall from the conduction band to the valence band (the energy levels above and below the band gap), they often emit light. This photoemission process underlies the light-emitting diode (LED) and the semiconductor laser, both of which are very important commercially. Conversely, semiconductor absorption of light in photodetectors excites electrons from the valence band to the conduction band, facilitating reception of fiber optic communications, and providing the basis for energy from solar cells.
Semiconductors may be elemental materials such as silicon and germanium, or compound semiconductors such as gallium arsenide and indium phosphide, or alloys such as silicon germanium or aluminium gallium arsenide.
Band structure
Band structure of a semiconductor showing a full valence band and an empty conduction band.For more details on this topic, see Electronic band structure.
Like other solids, the electrons in semiconductors can have energies only within certain bands between the energy of the ground state, corresponding to electrons tightly bound to the atomic nuclei of the material, and the free electron energy, which is the energy required for an electron to escape entirely from the material. The energy bands each correspond to a large number of discrete quantum states of the electrons, and most of the states with low energy are full, up to a particular band called the valence band. Semiconductors and insulators are distinguished from metals because the valence band in the former materials is very nearly full under normal conditions.
