MSCI406

HOMEWORK 05

8-1: Impurity orbits. Indium antimonide has Eg = 0.23eV ; dielectric constant  = 18;
electron effective mass me = 0.015m. Calculate (a) the donor ionization energy; (b) the
radius of the ground state orbit. (c) At what minimum donor concentration will appreciable overlap effects between the orbits of adjacent impurity atoms occur? This overlap
tends to produce an impurity band-a band of energy levels which permit conductivity
presumably by a hopping mechanism in which electrons move from one impurity site
to a neighboring ionized impurity site.
a. Ed = 13.6eV mm 12 ' 6.3 104 eV
b. r = aH  mm ' 6 106 cm
c. Overlap will be significant at a concentration N =

1
4 3
r
3

1015 atoms/cm3 .

8-2: Ionization of donors. In a particular semiconductor there are 1013 donors/cm3 with an
ioniation energy Ed of 1meV and an effective mass 0.01m. (a) Estimate the concentration
of conduction electrons at 4K. (b) What is the value of the Hall coefficient? Aussume
no acceptor atoms are present and that Eg  kB T .

a. From Eq. (53), n ' (n0 Nd )1/2 eEd /2kB T , in an approximation not too good for the present

3/2

4 1013 cm3 ; and 2kEBdT ' 1.45, e1.45 ' 0.23, therefore, n '
example, n0 2 m2kB2T
0.46 1013 electrons/cm3 .
1
b. RH = nec
' 1.3 1014 in CGS units.
9-1: Brillouin zones of rectangular lattice. Make a plot of the first two Brillouin zones of a
primitive rectangular two-dimensional lattice with axes a, b = 3a.

9-2: Brillouin zone, rectangular lattice. A two-dimensional metal has one atom of valency
one in a simple rectangular primitive cell a = 2
A; b = 4
A. (a) Draw the frist Brillouin
1
zone. Give its dimensions, in cm . (b) Calculate the radius of the free electron Fermi
sphere, in cm1 . (c) Draw this sphere to scale on a drawing of the first Brillouin zone.

Make another sketch to show the first few periods of the free electron band in the
periodic zone scheme, for both the first and secound energy bands. Assume there is a
small energy gap at the zone boundary.
a.

= 0.78 108 cm1 and

= 1.57 108 cm1

b.
N = 2

kF2
(2/L)2

1
n = N/L2 = kF2 /2 = 1016 els/cm2
8

8
kF = 2n = 0.8 10 cm1
c.

9-4: Brillouin zones of two-dimensional divalent metal. A two-dimensional metal in the form
of a square lattice has two conduction electrons per atom. In the almost free electron
approximation, sketch carefully the electron and hole energy surfaces. For the electrons
choose a zone scheme such that the Fermi surface is shown as closed.

Since the diagonal =

2
.
a

a
Then, 2kF2 4
2 = 2 kf =

2
,
a

so that,

< kF <

2
.
2

9-7: De Haas-van Alphen period of potassium. (a) Calculate the period (1/B) expected
for potassium on the free electron model. (b) What is the area in real space of the
extremal orbit, for B = 10kG = 1T ? The same period applies to oscillations in the
electrical resistivity, known as the Shubnikow-de Haas effect.

2e
1
, where S = kF2 , with kF = 0.75 108 cm1 from Table 6.1, for potassium. Thus,
a.
cS

H =
1
2
H ' 137k2 e ' 0.55 108 G1 .
F

b. c R = vF , therefore, R =

VF mc
eB

kF c
eB

' 0.5 103 cm, and R2 ' 0.7 106 cm2 .