III-V semiconductors have tetrahedral crystal structure with sp3 hybridization. Does all materials that have this type of crystal structure have semiconductor properties? Does this include organic compounds also?
Ranjith,
The elementary semiconductor materials like silicon are characterized by tetrahedral covalent bond, where every atom is bound to four neighboring atoms. Three five compounds behaves in the same manner forming zinc blende structure.
Accordingly the valence band will be filled with electrons and the conduction band will be empty at zero kelvin. At room temperature, the valence band will be partially empty and the conduction band will be partially filled resulting in conduction by holes in the valence band and electrons in the conduction band. By doping the material one can control the hole concentration and the electron concentration and this is one of the great properties of the semiconductors.
So, a semiconductor can be recognized by a chemical bond, a crystallographic structure, and en energy band structure.
It is so that the semiconductors are classified into elementary and compound semiconductors. The compound semiconductors are clarified into three five compounds such as GaAs, and two six compounds like CdTe.
It is so depending on the value of the energy gap, these compounds can have metal like properties to semiconductors to semi insulators.Organic semiconductors under go such main properties. But it is noticed the organic semiconductors ha short range order rendering the conduction band very narrow with very high effective mass of electrons in such materials
Best wishes
Zekry,
Thank you sir. My doubt is, to choose a semiconductor material, is it right to start with a material having similar crystal structure (tetrahedral structure with sp3 hybridization) ?
Yes Ranjith, you can do but this does not grantee that the material will satisfy your requirements. As has been said in the first comment, The knowledge of the energy band structure is necessary for deciding about the the suitable applications of the material. For more details please follow the Link about the main features of semiconductor materials:https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_the_most_basic_features_of_semiconductors
Best wishes
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Physical Sciences
- Materials Science
- Materials
- Semiconductor