Depletion Region or Space charge region Depletion regions are an insulated region seen in the doped semiconductors with

a P-N junction where the mobile carriers diffused away. The only elements remaining in this region ions. It is named as Depletion region because this region is foemed by removing all the free charge carriers and leaving nothing to carry the current. How does the depletion region formed? By definition N-type semiconductor materials have more free electrons and P-type semiconductor material has more free holes in it. When the P and N type materials are joined together to form a junction electron migrate from N side and Hole migrate from P side. When the electron move from N type to P type it leaves behind a positive donar ion on the N side. Similarly hole movement from P type to N type will leave a negative acceptor ion on the P side. When the electron diffuses from the N type to P type will get eliminated by holes in the P side. Same way the migrated hole from the P side to N side will combine with the electrons and recombination happens again. As a net result the depleted electrons and holes are gone with recombination leaving the charged ions near the junction. Now the P side junction will have negative acceptor ions and N side junction will have positive donor ions with no mobile carriers. These ions create the electric field that produce the force blocking the further movement of the electrons and holes (charge carriers) from N side and P side respectively. This electric filed will start grow till it can completely block the further movement of the charge carriers and at this time the depletion equlibrium is reached. Electron Hole: A simple example to

understand the hole conduction(wikipedia) Hole conduction in a valence band can be explained by the following analogy. Imagine a row of people seated in an auditorium, where there are no spare chairs. Someone in the middle of the row wants to leave, so he jumps over the back of the seat into an empty row, and walks out. The empty row is analogous to the conduction band, and the person walking out is analogous to a free electron. Now imagine someone else comes along and wants to sit down.

The empty row has a poor view; so he does not want to sit there. Instead, a person in the crowded row moves into the empty seat the first person left behind. The empty seat moves one spot closer to the edge and the person waiting to sit down. The next person follows, and the next, etcetera. One could say that the empty seat moves towards the edge of the row. Once the empty seat reaches the edge, the new person can sit down. In the process everyone in the row has moved along. If those people were negatively charged (like electrons), this movement would constitute conduction. If the seats themselves were positively charged, then only the vacant seat would be positive. This is a very simple model of how hole conduction works.

This figure represent the formation of hole because of an electron gains energy to become a free electron. fig (b) an electrons gain more energy with light and becomes free electron (valence to conduction) and a hole is left behind. fig(c) since a hole is there the electron can move inside the lattice structure so an electric field appears.