Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 5, 2026

All-electronic Nanosecond-resolved Scanning Tunneling Microscopy: Facilitating the Investigation of Single Dopant Charge Dynamics
11:33

All-electronic Nanosecond-resolved Scanning Tunneling Microscopy: Facilitating the Investigation of Single Dopant Charge Dynamics

Published on: January 19, 2018

Ultrafast electron and hole dynamics in germanium nanowires

R P Prasankumar1, S Choi, S A Trugman

  • 1Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA. rpprasan@lanl.gov

Nano Letters
|May 8, 2008
PubMed

More Related Videos

Theoretical Calculation and Experimental Verification for Dislocation Reduction in Germanium Epitaxial Layers with Semicylindrical Voids on Silicon06:57

Theoretical Calculation and Experimental Verification for Dislocation Reduction in Germanium Epitaxial Layers with Semicylindrical Voids on Silicon

Published on: July 17, 2020

Flow-assisted Dielectrophoresis: A Low Cost Method for the Fabrication of High Performance Solution-processable Nanowire Devices09:14

Flow-assisted Dielectrophoresis: A Low Cost Method for the Fabrication of High Performance Solution-processable Nanowire Devices

Published on: December 7, 2017

Related Concept Videos

Fermi Level Dynamics01:12

Fermi Level Dynamics

The vacuum level denotes the energy threshold required for an electron to escape from a material surface. It is usually positioned above the conduction band of a semiconductor and acts as a benchmark for comparing electron energies within various materials.
Electron affinity in semiconductors refers to the energy gap between the minimum of its conduction band and the vacuum level and it is a critical parameter in determining how easily a semiconductor can accept additional electrons.
The work...
Types of Semiconductors01:20

Types of Semiconductors

Intrinsic semiconductors are highly pure materials with no impurities. At absolute zero, these semiconductors behave as perfect insulators because all the valence electrons are bound, and the conduction band is empty, disallowing electrical conduction. The Fermi level is a concept used to describe the probability of occupancy of energy levels by electrons at thermal equilibrium. In intrinsic semiconductors, the Fermi level is positioned at the midpoint of the energy gap at absolute zero. When...
P-N junction01:11

P-N junction

A p-n junction is formed when p-type and n-type semiconductor materials are joined together. At the interface of the p-n junction, holes from the p-side and electrons from the n-side begin to diffuse into the opposite sides due to the concentration gradient. This diffusion of carriers leads to a region around the junction where there are no free charge carriers, known as the depletion region. The charge density within the depletion region for the n-side and p-side can be described by the...
Metal-Semiconductor Junctions01:24

Metal-Semiconductor Junctions

The contact of metal and semiconductor can lead to the formation of a junction with either Schottky or Ohmic behavior.
Schottky Barriers
Schottky barriers arise when a metal with a work function (Φm) contacts a semiconductor with a different work function (Φs). Initially, electrons transfer until the Fermi levels of the metal and semiconductor align at equilibrium. For instance, if Φm > Φs, the semiconductor Fermi level is higher than the metal's before contact. The semiconductor's...
Carrier Generation and Recombination01:22

Carrier Generation and Recombination

Carrier generation is the process by which electron-hole pairs (EHPs) are created within the semiconductor. In direct-bandgap semiconductors, such as gallium arsenide (GaAs), this occurs efficiently when energy absorption prompts valence electrons to leap into the conduction band, leaving behind holes.
This process is given by the generation rate G and is efficient due to the conservation of momentum between the valence band maximum and conduction band minimum.
Indirect generation involves an...
Carrier Transport01:21

Carrier Transport

The generation of electrical current in semiconductors is fundamentally driven by two mechanisms: drift and diffusion. These processes are essential for the functionality and performance of semiconductor-based devices.
Drift Current:
The drift of charge carriers is started by an external electric field (E). Charged particles, such as electrons and holes, experience an acceleration between collisions with lattice atoms. For electrons, this results in a drift velocity (vd) given by: