ISSN:
1089-7690
Source:
AIP Digital Archive
Topics:
Physics
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
Notes:
A statistical thermodynamic treatment is presented for the formation of electrons and holes in nondegenerate semiconductors, and for the accompanying standard changes in the Gibbs energy ΔG°, entropy ΔS°, heat capacity ΔC°, and enthalpy ΔH°. The treatment leads to the derivation of a new form for the variation of ΔG° with temperature, i.e., ΔG°−ΔG° (at 0 K)≡E g−E g (at 0 K)=AT−BT ln T, where E g is the forbidden band gap energy, and A and B are theoretically derivable constants, requiring relatively small adjustments for each semiconductor. Reliable data for Si, Ge, GaAs, and GaP show that this equation and the derived properties ΔS°, ΔC°, and ΔH° are well represented as functions of temperature. The foregoing equation is also useful in predicting the temperature dependence of E g from two values of E g at two different temperatures. The resulting interpretation of ΔG° indicates a distinct possibility that E g is constant below a characteristic temperature close to 0 K.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.449439
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