07.01.2014 Views

CHEM01200604009 Sreejith Kaniyankandy - Homi Bhabha ...

CHEM01200604009 Sreejith Kaniyankandy - Homi Bhabha ...

CHEM01200604009 Sreejith Kaniyankandy - Homi Bhabha ...

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

6<br />

It is clear from the figure that the region not bounded by overlapping potential energy<br />

curves is empty i.e. there are no energy levels between the two bands. Secondly in figure 1.1<br />

at the bond length marked in the figure there is a forbidden zone indicating that at that bond<br />

length, the material is a semiconductor. Understanding this splitting of potential energy<br />

curves requires a quantum mechanical treatment of system.<br />

Charge carriers are subjected to a periodic component due to crystal structure.<br />

Therefore the wave function also should have a periodically varying component. These<br />

functions are called Bloch functions which automatically take into account periodicity of the<br />

lattice. Simplest model describing the semiconductor system is called Kronig-Penney model<br />

which is a modified particle-in-a-box type of treatment.<br />

V(x)<br />

V 0<br />

I<br />

II<br />

I<br />

II<br />

I<br />

b<br />

a<br />

x<br />

Figure 1. 2. Potential in Kronig-Penney model.

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!