Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T17:39:20.003Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Electrons and Defects in Semiconductors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2011

H.J. Queisser
H.J. Queisser*
Affiliation:
Miller-Institute Visiting Professor, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 on leave from Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung, Heisenbergstrasse 1 D-70569 Stuttgart, [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

This review addresses the centennial of the identification of the electron as the unit charge particle as well as the golden anniversary of the first demonstration of transistor action in a semiconductor material. Surprising skepticism arose in the acceptance of the quantized nature of the electric fluid; and formidable hurdles were encountered by the early generations of transistors. These obstacles are difficult to understand today. The transistor demonstration initiated research leading to highly perfected semiconductors. These materials can today be utilized toward precision measurements of fundamental quantities, such as the elementary charge by the quantum Hall effect, or the electron's effective spin magnetic moments by spectroscopy of quantum beats. Electrons and holes represent particle-antiparticle pairs in semiconductors with strong photon interactions, much like the fundamental lepton particles, for which a speculation on an evolutionary origin is presented. The unexpectedly long life of injected excess minority carriers in germanium established lifetime as the essential quantitative measure for materials quality and initiated massive and successful research on semiconductor defects.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 510: Symposium D – Defect & Impurity Engineered Semiconductors & Devices II , January 1998 , 289
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Thomson, J. J., Proc. Roy. Inst. 15, 419 (1897)Google Scholar
2. Springford, M., editor: Electron. a Centenary Volume, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1997). This book contains several chapters on all aspects of the electron; semiconductors, however, are only very marginally covered.Google Scholar
3. Wiechert, E., Schr.d. Phys. Ökon. Ges.(Königsberg), 38, 3 (1897); also, see the discussion in Ref.[2], p.9 Google Scholar
4. Shockley, W., ’The Invention of the Transistor”, Nat.Bureau of Standards Spec.Publ. 388, (1974); also W. Shockley, IEEE Trans. ED - 23,611 (1976)Google Scholar
5. Queisser, Hans J., (a) The Conquest of the Microchip, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA (1988).(b) The original German version Kristallene Krisen, Piper, Munich, seconded. (1987) is more detailed.Google Scholar
6. A review on Gaede and pump technology, written in the birthyear of the transistor, is in: Jnanananda, S., High Vacua, Van Nostrand, New York, (1947)Google Scholar
7. See Ref. [2], p.10 and p.25Google Scholar
8. Fitzgerald, G. F., Electrician 39, 103 (1897)Google Scholar
9. Planck, M., Theory of Light, (transl. from German) J.A.Barth, Leipzig (1931)Google Scholar
10. Pohl, R. W., Lehrbuch der Experimentalphysik, 3 vols., many editions, J. Springer, Heidelberg (1934)Google Scholar
11. Millikan, R. A., Phys. Rev. 7, 355 (1916)Google Scholar
12. von Klitzing, K., Revs. Mod. Phys. 58, 519 (1986)Google Scholar
13. Ref. [2], p. 34 Google Scholar
14. Heisenberg, W., private communication to Queisser, H. J. (1969), see [5] (b). p.75Google Scholar
15. Gee, D., thesis, Cambridge, UK (1996), see Ref. [2], p. 240 Google Scholar
16. Hanle, W., Z. Physik 30, 93 (1924)Google Scholar
17. A recent review is : Oestreich, M. and Rühle, W., Phys. Blltter, 54, 49 (1998)Google Scholar
18. A memorial on Paul Dirac is by M. Berry, Physics World, February 1998, p.36 Google Scholar
19. Dirac, P.A. M., Proc. Roy. Soc. (London), 118, 351 (1928)Google Scholar
20. Dirac, P.A. M., Proc. Roy. Soc. (London), 117, 610 (1928)Google Scholar
21. Heberle, A., Rühle, W. W., and Ploog, K., Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 3887 (1994)Google Scholar
22. Oestreich, M. and Rühle, W. W., Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 2315 (1995)Google Scholar
23. Hannak, R. M., Oestreich, M., Heberle, A. P., Rühle, W.W., and Köhler, K., Solid State Commun. 93, 313 (1995)Google Scholar
24. Olive, D. I., “The Relativistic Electron”, in Ref. [2], p. 39 Google Scholar
25. Shockley, W., Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors, Van Nostrand, New York (1950)Google Scholar
26. Shockley, W., private communications to H.J.Q.Google Scholar
27. Casey, H. C. Jr., and Panish, M. B., Heterostructure Lasers, Academic, NY (1978)Google Scholar
28. Nakamura, S. and Fasol, G., The Blue Laser Diode, Springer, Heidelberg (1997)Google Scholar
29. Queisser, H. J.. “Photovoltaic Multiplicities” in First Conference on Future Generation Photovoltaic Technologies, McConnell, R.D., editor, AIP Conf.Proc.(Woodbury, NY) 404, 267 (1997)Google Scholar
30. Shockley, W. and Queisser, H. J., J. Appl. Phys. 32, 510 (1961)Google Scholar
31. Werner, J. H., Kolodinski, S., and Queisser, H. J., Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 3851 (1970)Google Scholar
32. Wolf, M., Brendel, R., Werner, J. H., and Queisser, H.J., J. Appl. Phys., to be published (1998); also, see [29]Google Scholar
33. Heitler, W., The Ouantum Theory of Radiation, third ed., Clarendon, Oxford (1954), especially chapters 25 and 26Google Scholar
34. Private communications with Queisser, H. J., gratefully acknowledgedGoogle Scholar
35. A thorough review on pair production of leptons is: Tsai, Y. S., Revs. Mod. Phys. 30, 815 (1974). I thank Yung-Su Tsai for helpful discussions.Google Scholar
36. Queisser, H. J., unpublished manuscriptsGoogle Scholar
37. Queisser, H. J., Perfecting the Solid State, Annual Review Material Sci.22, 1 (1992)Google Scholar
38. See Ref.[5], also : Riordan, M. and Hoddeson, L., Crystal Fire, Norton, New York (1997)Google Scholar
39. A recent historical summary is given by the symposium Fifty Years and Counting, Proceedings of the Electrochemical Soc. (Silicon Symposium, San Diego, May 1998), containing my contribution “Materials Research in Early Silicon Valley”Google Scholar
40. Braun, E. and Macdonald, S., Revolution in Miniature, Cambridge Univ.Press, (1978). Also, for the struggles after the first ten years of the transistor, see: Morton, J. A. and Pietenpol, W. J., Proc. IRE 46, 955 (1958)Google Scholar
41. Haynes, J. R. and Shockley, W., Phys. Rev. 81, 835 (1951)Google Scholar
42. Queisser, H. J., plenary review: “Order and Disorder in Semiconductors”, in: Defects-,Ashok, S. et al., editors (Mater. Res. Soc. Proc. 378, Pittsburgh, PA,1995) p. 3 Google Scholar
43. Ridenour, L. N., editor, Crystal Rectifiers, Mass. Inst. Technol. Radiation Laboratory Series, Vol. 15, McGraw-Hill, New York (1948), also Refs. [5] and [38]Google Scholar