Union-Discipline-Travail Volonté-Travail-Succès

EXPOSED ENGLISH

THEME: CONDUCTOR, INSULATOR, SEMI CONDUCTORS

NAME NAME OF THE

PROFESEUR
* CISSE MAMDOU
* MR BOKA
Hf

SCHOOL YEAR 2019-2020

CLASSROM : BT ELECTRONIQUE 2
 I- DEFINITION OF THE CONDUCTOR
In physics and electrical engineering, a conductor is an object or type of material that allows the
flow of charge (electrical current) in one or more directions. Materials made of metal are common
electrical conductors. Electrical current is generated by the flow of negatively charged electrons,
positively charged holes, and positive or negative ions in some cases.
In order for current to flow, it is not necessary for one charged particle to travel from the machine
producing the current to that consuming it. Instead, the charged particle simply needs to nudge its
neighbor a finite amount who will nudge its neighbor and on and on until a particle is nudged into the
consumer, thus powering the machine. Essentially what is occurring is a long chain of momentum
transfer between mobile charge carriers; the Drude model of conduction describes this process
more rigorously. This momentum transfer model makes metal an ideal choice for a conductor;
metals, characteristically, possess a delocalized sea of electrons which gives the electrons enough
mobility to collide and thus effect a momentum transfer.
As discussed above, electrons are the primary mover in metals; however, other devices such as the
cationic electrolyte(s) of a battery, or the mobile protons of the proton conductor of a fuel cell rely on
positive charge carriers. Insulators are non-conducting materials with few mobile charges that
support only insignificant electric currents.

II- DEFINTION OF THE INSULATOR

An electrical insulator is a material whose internal electric charges do not flow freely; very
little electric current will flow through it under the influence of an electric field. This contrasts with
other materials, semiconductors and conductors, which conduct electric current more easily. The
property that distinguishes an insulator is its resistivity; insulators have higher resistivity than
semiconductors or conductors.
A perfect insulator does not exist, because even insulators contain small numbers of mobile charges
(charge carriers) which can carry current. In addition, all insulators become electrically
conductive when a sufficiently large voltage is applied that the electric field tears electrons away from
the atoms. This is known as the breakdown voltage of an insulator. Some materials such
as glass, paper and Teflon, which have high resistivity, are very good electrical insulators. A much
larger class of materials, even though they may have lower bulk resistivity, are still good enough to
prevent significant current from flowing at normally used voltages, and thus are employed as
insulation for electrical wiring and cables. Examples include rubber-like polymers and
most plastics which can be thermoset or thermoplastic in nature.
Insulators are used in electrical equipment to support and separate electrical conductors without
allowing current through themselves. An insulating material used in bulk to wrap electrical cables or
other equipment is called insulation. The term insulator is also used more specifically to refer to
insulating supports used to attach electric power distribution or transmission lines to utility
poles and transmission towers. They support the weight of the suspended wires without allowing the
current to flow through the tower to ground
 III- DEFINITION OF THE SEMI CONDUCTOR

A semiconductor material has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor,

such as metallic copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistance falls as its temperature rises;
metals are the opposite. Its conducting properties may be altered in useful ways by introducing
impurities ("doping") into the crystal structure. Where two differently-doped regions exist in the same
crystal, a semiconductor junction is created. The behavior of charge carriers which
include electrons, ions and electron holes at these junctions is the basis of diodes, transistors and all
modern electronics. Some examples of semiconductors are silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide,
and elements near the so-called "metalloid staircase" on the periodic table. After silicon, gallium
arsenide is the second most common semiconductor[citation needed] and is used in laser diodes, solar cells,
microwave-frequency integrated circuits and others. Silicon is a critical element for fabricating most
electronic circuits.
Semiconductor devices can display a range of useful properties such as passing current more easily
in one direction than the other, showing variable resistance, and sensitivity to light or heat. Because
the electrical properties of a semiconductor material can be modified by doping, or by the application
of electrical fields or light, devices made from semiconductors can be used for amplification,
switching, and energy conversion.
The conductivity of silicon is increased by adding a small amount (of the order of 1 in 108) of
pentavalent (antimony, phosphorus, or arsenic) or trivalent (boron, gallium, indium) atoms. This
process is known as doping and resulting semiconductors are known as doped or extrinsic
semiconductors. Apart from doping, the conductivity of a semiconductor can equally be improved by
increasing its temperature. This is contrary to the behaviour of a metal in which conductivity
decreases with increase in temperature.
The modern understanding of the properties of a semiconductor relies on quantum physics to explain
the movement of charge carriers in a crystal lattice.[1] Doping greatly increases the number of charge
carriers within the crystal. When a doped semiconductor contains mostly free holes it is called "p-
type", and when it contains mostly free electrons it is known as "n-type". The semiconductor
materials used in electronic devices are doped under precise conditions to control the concentration
and regions of p- and n-type dopants. A single semiconductor crystal can have many p- and n-type
regions; the p–n junctions between these regions are responsible for the useful electronic behavior.
Some of the properties of semiconductor materials were observed throughout the mid 19th and first
decades of the 20th century. The first practical application of semiconductors in electronics was the
1904 development of the cat's-whisker detector, a primitive semiconductor diode used in early radio
receivers. Developments in quantum physics in turn led to the development of the transistor in 1947,
[2]
 the integrated circuit in 1958, and the MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor)
in 1959.
IV- images of a driver, inslant and
semiconductor