Semiconductor

Article By:

Frenzel, Louis Retired, Department of Engineering Technology, Austin Community College, Austin, Texas.

Berry, Carlotta Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Indiana.

Last reviewed:April 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.614010

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• Semiconductor, published June 2014:Download PDF Get Adobe Acrobat Reader

A solid crystalline material whose electrical conductivity is intermediate between that of a metal and an insulator. Semiconductors exhibit conduction properties that may be temperature-dependent, permitting their use as thermistors (temperature-dependent resistors), or voltage-dependent, as in varistors. By making suitable contacts to a semiconductor or by making the material suitably inhomogeneous, electrical rectification and amplification can be obtained. Semiconductor devices, rectifiers, and transistors replaced the original use of vacuum tubes electronics, saving volume and power consumption by orders of magnitude. In the form of integrated circuits, semiconducting materials are vital for computing systems (Fig. 1). The optical properties of a semiconductor are also important for numerous applications. Photodiodes, photoconductive detectors of radiation, injection lasers, light-emitting diodes, solar-energy conversion cells, and so forth are examples of the wide variety of optoelectronic devices. See also: Electrical circuit; Electricity; Integrated circuit; Laser; Light-emitting diode; Photodiode; Photoelectric device; Semiconductor diode; Semiconductor rectifier; Thermistor; Transistor; Varistor

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