Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
http://britneyspears.ac/physics/dos/dos.htm
[ Home ] [ Picture Galleries ] [ Britney Spears guide to Semiconductor physics ] [ Links ] [ Lyrics ] [ Advertise ] [Stuff] [ Chat ] [Link to us] [ Awards ] [Britney News]
(1) Prince Louis De-Broglie, hypothesised that if waves could exhibit particle-like properties, then might particles also exhibit wave-like properties? This idea is expressed as particle-wave duality and allows us to give the electron a wave number k .
(2) In this way, the electron can be represented by a vector in velocity, momentum or k-space. If we choose to represent the electron state as a vector, it points in a direction given by the components magnitude of the basis vectors in k-space. It should be apparent that vectors of the same magnitude have the same energy forming spherical shells. This can be understood better, if we consider the equation for the energy of the electron in terms of k .
(3) Classically, all values of energy would be allowed and there would be no restriction on the number of electrons with the same value of k . However, at atomic scales, the effects of quantum mechanics dominate and two further famous principles come into play. These are the Heisenburg uncertainty principle and the Pauli exclusion principle. Together, these two rules mean that the wavefunction for the electron must satisfy the Schrdinger equation, subject to boundary conditions. The solution of the Schrdinger equation leads to wavefunctions of the form:
(4) As we consider the density of states, the situation is complicated by energy degeneracy. That is, that for some of the allowed energy levels, there are more than one possible combination of components in k-space that well give the same energy. In a quantum well, there is only one restricted energy level, therefore, the degeneracy is always 1 (not taking into account the electron intrinsic angular momentum spin). In a quantum wire, the degeneracy depends on the values of two sets of energy levels. While for a quantum dot there are three sets of discrete energy levels. This is only valid if and only if,
(5)
1 of 5
4/30/2013 10:50 AM
http://britneyspears.ac/physics/dos/dos.htm
where n x , n y , n z are integers. With this restriction in k-space, only certain values of k-space lead to acceptable electron wave-functions solutions. k-space would be filled if each position was filled with a cubic unit cell of volume. Explicitly, the volume of k-space would be:
(6)
Figure 1 Visualisation of k-space showing values of k as points. The number of allowed states is the number of these points contained in the shell of radius k and thickness dk. The diagram shows the spherical shells. The problem of finding the number of allowed states amounts to finding the number of these allowed states between spheres of radius k and k +d k . In 3-dimensions, the volume between the two shells is given by:
(7) Therefore, the number of states is given simply by dividing this volume by the volume of a single energy state. At this point is convenient to introduce an additional factor of two to account for the intrinsic angular momentum of the electrons or spin states. The result is:
(8) To obtain the density of states per unit volume in terms of the energy we must find a relation between E and k .
2 of 5
4/30/2013 10:50 AM
http://britneyspears.ac/physics/dos/dos.htm
(11) Taking the bulk case as an example, the density of states in terms of energy is then
(12) This gives the density of states per unit volume per at a wave vector-k. It is more usual to see the density of states quoted per unit energy. We shall come back to this after looking at the density of states for 2,1 and 0 dimensional structures.
(14)
Figure 2 k-space in 2D. The density of states at an energy E is the number of k-states per unit volume contained with the annulus of radius k and thickness dk. Dividing the 'volume' of the k-state by the area of the annulus gives and remembering to multiply by 2 to account for the electron spin states we get:
3 of 5
4/30/2013 10:50 AM
http://britneyspears.ac/physics/dos/dos.htm
(16) It is significant that the 2-d density of states does not depend on energy. Immediately, as the top of the energy-gap is reached, there is a significant number of available states. Taking into account the other energy levels in the quantum well, the density of states takes on a staircase like function given by:
(17) where H (E-Ei) is the Heaviside function. It takes the value of zero when E is less than E i and 1, when E is equal to or greater than E i . E i is the i -th energy level within the quantum well.
(18)
(19) Therefore the density of states per unit length in 1-d and multiplying by 2 for spin degeneracy,
(20) For one dimension, the density of states per unit volume at energy E is given by
(21) Using more than the first energy level, the density of states function becomes
(22) where once again, H ( E-E i ) is the Heaviside function and n i is the degeneracy factor. For quantum structures with dimensions lower than 2, it is possible for the same energy level to occur for more than one arrangement of confined states. To account for this, a second factor n i ( E ) is introduced.
4 of 5
4/30/2013 10:50 AM
http://britneyspears.ac/physics/dos/dos.htm
The table below summarises the ratio of allowed energies to ground state energy and degeneracy of the energy level for 2D, 1D and 0D structures. While the graph shows the density of states functions plotted against energy.
2D State E/E
0
1D n(E) E/E
0
0D Degenerate States (1,1) (2,1),(1,2) (2,2) (3,1),(1,3) (3,2),(2,3) (4,1),(1,4) n(E) E/E
0
Degenerate States
n(E)
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 4 9 16 25 36
1 1 1 1 1 1
2 5 8 10 13 17
1 2 1 2 2 2
3 6 9 11 12 14
(1,1,1) (2,1,1),(1,2,1),(1,1,2) (2,2,1),(1,2,2),(2,1,2) (3,1,1),(1,3,1),(1,1,3) (2,2,2) (3,2,1),(3,1,2),(2,3,1) (2,1,3),(1,3,2),(1,2,3) (3,2,2),(2,3,2),(2,2,3) (4,1,1),(1,4,1),(1,1,4) (4,2,1),(4,1,2),(1,4,2) (1,2,4),(2,4,1),(2,1,4) (3,3,3)
1 3 3 3 1 6
7 8 9
49 64 81
1 1 1
18 20 25
1 2 2
17 18 21
3 3 6
10
100
26
(5,1),(1,5)
27
Table 1 Degeneracy of energy states for quantum well (2D), quantum wire (1D) and quantum box (0D).
Density of states for bulk (3D blue), quantum well (2D red), quantum wire (1D green) and quantum Dot (0D black)
References
[1] Bart Van Zeghbroeck, Principles of Semiconductor Devices , Colarado University [2] D. A. B. Miller, Semiconductor Optoelectronics Devices, Stanford University , (2000). Back to the semiconductors
[ Home ] [ Picture Galleries ] [ Britney Spears guide to Semiconductor physics ] [ Links ] [ Lyrics ] [Advertise ] [Stuff] [ Chat ] [Link to us] [ Awards ] [Britney News]
5 of 5
4/30/2013 10:50 AM