Electronic Materials

From the point of view of engineering application, it is essential to have the knowledge of the behaviour of electronic materials, which is discussed in this chapter. Based on the electrical conductivity, all the materials in nature are classified as insulators, semiconductors, and conductors. Intrinsic and extrinsic semiconductors have been discussed in terms of doping, Fermi level, carrier transport and drift, and diffusion current. The law of mass action and the temperature variation of carrier concentration follow this. Hall effect and its occurrence in both n-type and p-type semiconductor follows next. Finally, we have discussed the p-n junction diode, its biasing, V - I characteristics, and applications.