Saturday, 13 September 2014

DIFFUSION CURRENT IN SEMICONDUCTORS

DIFFUSION   CURRENT

  • The directional movement of charge carriers due to their concentration gradient produces a component of current known as Diffusion current.
  • The mechanism of transport of charges in a semiconductor when no electric field is applied called diffusion. It is encountered only in semiconductors and is normally absent in conductors.





  • With no applied voltage if the number of charge carriers (either holes or electrons) in one region of a semiconductor is less compared to the rest of the region then there exist a concentration gradient.

  • Since the charge carriers are either all electrons or all holes they sine polarity of charge and thus there is a force of repulsion between them.
  • As a result, the carriers tend to move gradually or diffuse from the region of higher concentration to the region of lower concentration. This process is called diffusion and electric current produced due to this process is called diffusion current.
  • This process continues until all the carriers are evenly distributed through the material. Hence when there is no applied voltage, the net diffusion current will be zero.

0 comments:

Post a Comment