Home Assignment - IV (EEL732)

Adersh Miglani
Adersh.Miglani@gmail.com
13-Aug-2013
Assignment: Suppose we could make a wire of n-type
silicon doped at 10
15
cm
3
. What would be the diameter of a
10 cm long piece of Si wire to have same resistance as #24
copper wire of same length?
Solution:
1) Resistance of a n-type semiconductor of length L and
cross-section area A is given by the following expression
R =
L
A
(1)
where is resistivity
2) The expression for the resistivity of a semiconductor is
=
1
e(
n
n +
p
p)
(2)
where e is electron charge in Coulomb,
n
is electron
mobility,
p
is hole mobility, n is electron concentration
and p is hole concentration.
3) At room temperature T = 300 K, the intrinsic concentra-
tion is n
i
= 1.45 10
10
cm
3
. Assume all donors are
ionized. Then, concentration of electrons in conduction
band is n N
d
= 10
15
cm
3
. In this case, the
concentration of holes in valence band is computed by
the law of mass action,
p =
n
2
i
n
=
1.45
2
10
20
10
15
= 2.1 10
5
(3)
Since, n p,
=
1
e(
n
n +
p
p)

1
e(
n
n)
(4)
4) Typical electron mobility for silicon at room temperature
is
n
= 1350 cm
2
/V-s. The resistivity of given n-type
silicon is
=
1
1.6 10
19
(1350 10
15
)
= 4.63 -cm
5) The resistance
1
of #24 copper wire is 0.0842 /m at
20

C. So, the resistance of a 10 cm long #24 copper

wire is,
R = 0.0842 0.10 = 0.00842 (5)
The cross-sectional area of semiconductor is
A =
L
R
= 4.63
10
0.00842
= 5498.8 cm
2
(6)
1
Source: http://www.daycounter.com/Calculators/AWG.phtml
6) Radius of silicon wire should be
r =

5498.8

= 41.84 cm (7)
7) The diameter of a 10 cm long piece of Si wire is
d = 2r = 83.68 cm Answer (8)