Charge Carrying Generation &

Recombination
What happens after determining the
number of electrons and holes are in the
semiconductor?

Parts of a semiconductor
In a graph, the band gap generally refers to the energy differences (in
electron volts) between the top of the valence band and the bottom of the
conduction band in insulators and semiconductors.
This is equivalent to the energy required to free an outer shell electron from
its orbit about the nucleus to become a mobile charge carrier (able to move
freely within the solid material).
Substances with large band gaps are generally insulators, smaller band gaps
are semiconductors and conductors either have very small gaps or none
because the valence and conduction bands overlap.

Charge carriers (electrons and holes)

Masses
= 9.11 1031
= 1.67 1027
= 1.67 1027
= 1.602 1019
= +1.602 1019

Effective Mass of electrons and holes:

A particle's effective mass is the mass it
appears to carry in transport in a crystal.
Electrons and holes in a crystal respond to
electric and magnetic fields almost as if
they were particles with a mass dependent
on their direction of travel (an effective
mass tensor).

GaAs semiconductor bandgap

Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a semiconductor compound used in the manufacturing of
devises such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, infrared light-emitting diodes,
solar cells and optical windows.

GaAs band structure produced by W. R. Frensley, Professor of EE @ UTD

using an empirical Pseudo-potential method see also: Cohen and Bergstrasser, Phys.
Rev. 141, 789 (1966).

Doping (n-type and p-type) materials

The conduction in a semiconductor can be changed through doping of foreign

atoms such as B or As in Si.
Doping with donors: ND (donor concentration) gives an n-type semiconductor and thus the
density of free electrons nn is larger than the density of free holes pn in an n-type material.
Doping with acceptors: NA (acceptor concentration) gives a p-type material. The density of
free holes pp is larger than the density of free electrons np.

The subscript indicates the material type. n is the symbol for electron concentration, p
for the hole concentration. Units are cm-3.

Doping with donor example

Doping with an acceptor

N & P-type

Free carriers (free electrons and holes)

Free carriers consisting of electrons, holes, or both.
Able to carry current in a semiconductor material.
Trapped carrier bound to a specific impurity atom,
defect (such as a vacancy) in the crystal, or bound to a
specific surface state. Trapped carriers are typically not
in the valence band and cannot carry current.
Free carriers are subject to move under the
mechanisms of drift, as in an electric field with force of
qE (where q is the electron charge and E is the electric
field strenght), and of diffusion.

Important charge carrier processes in

semiconductors
The free electron and hole concentration in bulk semiconductors (where
the crystal lattice structure is assumed to be infinite) can be modified by
the processes of generation and recombination, and also by the transport
of electrons and holes through drift and diffusion.
Generation: e.g., absorption of a photon generates a free electron and a free
hole (an electron-hole pair).
Recombination: can be radiative, in which case a photon is emitted as the
electron returns to the valence band or non-radiative

Transport is the movement of charge carriers under forces based either on

an electric field or on a concentration gradient:
Drift refers to the motion of charge carriers under the force of an electric field.
Motion is typically not ballistc but instead includes the resistive action of
scatter
Diffusion refers to motion of electron and holes due to the presence of a
concentration gradient.

Recombination & Generation

Absorption of light generation rate

The number of electron-hole pairs created per unit time is defined as the generation
rate
As light enters and travels through the semiconductor, the intensity of light drops
exponentially as the photons are converted to electron-hole pairs by the process of
photo generation.

= 0
Where is the absorption coefficient typically in cm-1 and x is the
distance into the material. 0 is the light intensity just inside the
surface of the semiconductor.

Since each photon absorbed generates an e-h pair, this exponential

decay also mimics the generation of carrier as a function of depth.

Absorption of light
Light incident on a semiconductor consist of photons with energy (E
= hv = hc/).
Photons interact with the semiconductor depending on their
energy:
< : Photons with energy below the band gap energy are
transmitted through the material.
= : Photons with sufficient energy to be absorbed in the
band-to-band transition, and generate an electron-hole pair.
Absorption of these photons will be relatively week.

> : Photons with significantly greater energy than the

semiconductors bandgap are relatively strongly absorbed, and
generate electron-hole pairs with initial excess kinetic energy. This
excess kinetic energy is quickly lost to the lattice structure.

Carrier generation due to light absorption and

ionization due to high-energy particle beams

Carrier generation due to light absorption

Carriers can be generated in semiconductors by illuminating the
semiconductor with light
The energy of the incoming photons is used to bring an electron from a
lower energy level to a higher energy level. In the case where an electron
is removed from the valence band and added to the conduction band, an
electron-hole pair is generated. A necessary condition for this to happen is
that the energy of the photon, Eph, is larger than the bandgap energy, Eg.
As the energy of the photon is given of to the electron, the photon no
longer exists.
Assuming that each absorbed photon creates one electron-hole pair, the
electron and hole generation rates are given by:

Generation mechanism Impact

ionization
Impact ionization is the generation mechanism which
is caused by an electron (hole) with an energy much
larger (smaller) than the conduction (valence) band
edge.

More on generation and

recombination
generation of carriers is happening continuously as long at the
temperature is sufficiently high to break the valence electron-atom bonds.
Of course other forms of energy can do the same. An example is light:
shining light on a semiconductor, with the correct energy, larger than the
energy gap, can also release electron-hole pairs.

Recombination is when an electron and hole will recombine and thus get
fixed to the atom and become unavailable for conduction. This is a
reduction of the number of free carriers. As with generation,
recombination is also continuously happening.

Direct & indirect recombination

Direct recombination of electron and holes means that excess electrons in
the conduction band recombine with holes in the valence band. Energy is
lost by the electron and is given off as photons (light)

Indirect recombination are when impurity centres or lattice defects in the

semiconductors, called traps these will always be available as a 100%
perfect semiconductor does not exist.
In this case, the energy released by the electrons causes heating of the lattice
(Heating causes lattice vibrations. These vibrations can be seen as particles called
phonons with which the carriers in the lattice can interact scatter. They can also
be regarded as waves with certain energy and wavelength).

Non-radiative Band-to-Band
recombination
Band-to-band recombination depends on the density of available
electrons and holes. Since both carrier types need to be available in
the recombination process, the rate is expected to be proportional
to the product of n and p. However in thermal equilibrium the
recombination rate must equal the generation rate since there is no
net recombination or generation. As the product
of n and p equals ni2 in thermal equilibrium, the net recombination
rate can be expressed as:
= ( 2 )

where b is the bimolecular recombination constant.

Optical processes
The most important optoelectronic interaction in
semiconductors is the band-to-band transition.
In the photon absorption process, the photon scatters an
electron in the valence band, causing the electron to go
into the valence band.
In the reverse process the electron in the conduction band
recombines with a hole in the valence band to generate a
photon
Conservation of energy
= + :
= :

Non-radiative Auger recombination

Counterpart to the impact ionization generation.

Auger recombination involves three particles: an electron and a hole which
recombine in a a band-to-and transition and give off the resulting energy to
another electron or hole. The expression for the net recombination rate is
therefore similar to that of band-to-band recombination but includes the density
of the electrons or hole which receive the released energy from the electron-hole
annihilation:

a) would be likely in p-type materials,

b) would be effective for defects that can
attract two carriers. The stair case
represents the rapid thermalization back to
the band edge.

Non-radiative recombination
In real semiconductors the forbidden band gap region
always has intentional or unintentional impurities that
produce electronic levels.
These regions can arise from chemical impurities or native
defects such as a lattice vacancy.
Bandgap levels are states in which the electrons localised
in a finite space near the defect not like free states.
As the electrons move in the allowed bands they can get
trapped by these defect.
Such defects can allow the recombination of an electron
(hole) without emission of a photon
This non-radiation process competes with radiative
recombination