Crystal Structure of Solids

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY CALICUT

EC3053D Semiconductor Device Modelling

Pullamchetty Gunasagar
B180453EC

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 Contents

➢ Introduction

➢ Semiconductor Materials

➢ Types of Solids

➢ Space Lattices

➢ Crystal Structures

➢ Miller Indices

➢ Diamond Structure

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Introduction

❏ A semiconductor is in general a single-crystal

material.

❏ The electrical properties of a single-crystal material

are determined not only by the chemical
composition but also by the arrangement of atoms
in the solid.

❏ The formation or growth of the single-crystal

material is an important part of semiconductor
technology.
Fig. 1 - Table showing the position of
common semiconductors in the periodic
table

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Semiconductor Materials

❏ Semiconductors are a group of materials having conductivities between those of metals

and insulators.
❏ Semiconductors are classified in to two types
➢ Elemental semiconductors
■ Examples: Si, Ge.
➢ Compound semiconductors
■ Examples: AlP, GaAs.
❏ We can also form a ternary compound semiconductor. An example is AlxGa1-xAs, in
which the subscript x indicates the fraction of the lower atomic number element
component.

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 Types of Solids

❏ Solids are classified into 3 types

➢ Amorphous
➢ Polycrystalline
➢ Single crystal

❏ Each type is characterized by the size of an ordered region within the material.

❏ Amorphous materials have order only within a few atomic or molecular dimensions.

❏ Polycrystalline materials have a high degree of order over many atomic or molecular
dimensions.

❏ Single-crystal materials ideally have a high degree of order.

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 Types of Solids(cont’d)

1. Amorphous
❏ The atoms and molecules in amorphous solids
are not organized in a definite lattice pattern.

❏ These solids don’t have definite melting points.

❏ Examples of amorphous solid are, plastics, glass,

rubber, metallic glass, polymers, gel, fused silica.

Fig. 2 - Schematic representation of

Amorphous solids

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 Types of Solids(cont’d)

2. Polycrystalline
❏ A polycrystalline solid is comprised of many small
crystallites with different crystal orientations that
are separated by grain boundaries.

❏ They don’tt have a periodic arrangement of atoms,

because the periodic pattern is broken at the grain
boundaries.

❏ Most inorganic solids are polycrystalline, including Fig. 3 - Schematic representation of

all common metals, many ceramics, rocks, and Polycrystalline solids
ice.

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 Types of Solids(cont’d)

3. Single Crystal
❏ The crystal lattice of the entire sample in a single
crystal is continuous and unbroken to the edges of
the sample, with no grain boundaries.

❏ They have definite melting points.

❏ Examples of single crystal solids are, quartz, salt,

Iceland spar, diamond, and topaz.
Fig. 4 - Schematic representation of
Single crystal solids

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 Space Lattices

❏ A representative unit or a group of atoms is repeated at regular intervals in each of the

three dimensions to form the single crystal.

❏ The periodic arrangement of atoms in the crystal is called the lattice.

Fig. 5(a) - 2D representation of Fig. 5(b) - 2D representation of single-crystal

single-crystal lattice lattice showing various possible unit cells.

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 Space Lattices(cont’d)

❏ A unit cell is a small volume of the crystal that can

be used to reproduce the entire crystal.

❏ A primitive cell is the smallest unit cell that can be

repeated to form the lattice.

❏ Unit cell is may or may not be primitive.

❏ Every equivalent lattice point in the

three-dimensional crystal can be found using the
vector
Fig. 6 - A primitive and a non-primitive
unit cell
where p, q and s are integers

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Crystal Structures

Fig. 7 - Generalized structure of a primitive unit

cell

(a) (b) (c)

Fig. 8 - Three lattice types: (a) simple cubic, (b) body-centered cubic, (c) face-centered cubic.

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Crystal Structures(cont’d)

1. Simple Cubic
❏ The simple cubic(sc) structure has an atom
located at each corner.

❏ Its packing efficiency is about 52%.

❏ Polonium is the only element with a simple cubic

crystal structure.

❏ Number of atoms per unit cell is = ⅛ * 8 = 1 atom

per cell
Fig. 9- Simple Cubic structure
❏ Coordination Number is 6.

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Crystal Structures(cont’d)

2. Body Centered Cubic

❏ The body-centered cubic (bcc) structure has an
additional atom at the center of the cube.

❏ Coordination Number is 8.

❏ Lithium, sodium, chromium, iron all have the BCC

crystal structure.

❏ Packing efficiency of BCC is 68.04%.

❏ Number of atoms per unit cell is = ⅛ * 8 + 1 = 2

Fig. 10 - Body Centered Cubic structure
atoms per cell.

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Crystal Structures(cont’d)

3. Face Centered Cubic

❏ The face-centered cubic (fcc) structure has
additional atoms on each face plane.

❏ The packing efficiency of FCC lattice is 74%.

❏ Coordination Number is 12.

❏ Aluminum, copper, nickel,gold have FCC

structure.

❏ Number of atoms per unit cell is = ⅛ * 8 + ½ * 6 =

Fig. 11 - Face Centered Cubic structure
4 atoms per cell.

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Crystal Structures(cont’d)

Volume Density
❏ By knowing the crystal structure of a material and its lattice dimensions,, we can
determine the volume density of atoms.

Surface Density
❏ Surface density of atoms may be important in determining how another material, such
as an insulator, will fit on the surface of a semiconductor material.

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Miller Indices

❏ Miller indices are group of three numbers that indicates the orientation of a plane or
set of parallel planes of atoms in a crystal.

❏ They are found by taking the reciprocal of the intercepts of the plane and are denoted
by (hkl).

❏ The h, k, and l directional indices are separated by 90°, and are thus orthogonal.

Fig. 12 - Three lattice planes: (a) (100) plane, (b) (110) plane, (c) (111) plane.

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 Diamond Structure

❏ Diamond structure is basically a body-centered cubic with four of the corner atoms
missing.

❏ Every atom in the tetrahedral structure has four nearest neighbors.

❏ It is the basic building block of the diamond lattice.

❏ The most common semiconductor materials silicon and germanium have diamond
crystal structure.

Fig. 14 - Tetrahedral structure of closest

Fig. 13 - The Diamond Structure neighbours in diamond lattice
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 Diamond Structure(cont’d)

❏ Figure 15(a) shows two body-centered cubic, or

tetrahedral, structures diagonally adjacent to each other.

❏ The open circles represent atoms in the lattice that are

generated when the structure is translated to the right or
left, one lattice constant, a. (a)

❏ Figure 15(b) represents the top half of the diamond

structure.

❏ The top half again consists of two tetrahedral structures

joined diagonally, but which are at 90° with respect to the
bottom-half diagonal.
(b)

Fig. 15 - Portions of the diamond lattice:

(a) bottom half and (b) top half.

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 Thank You!!
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