What is Electronics?

Electronics Definition – Electronics is the branch of science that deals with the study of flow and control of electrons (electricity) and the study of their behavior and effects in vacuums, gases, and semiconductors, and with devices using such electrons.

  • This control of electrons is accomplished by devices (electronic components) that resist, carry, select, steer, switch, store, manipulate, and exploit the electron.
  • Electronics engineering is the branch of engineering which deals with current conduction through vacuum or gas or semiconductor.
  • Electronics essentially deals with electronic devices and their utilization. An electronic device is that in which current flows through a vacuum or gas or semiconductor. Electronics has gained much importance due to its numerous applications in industry.
  • The basic electronic device is nonlinear. The current is an exponential function of voltage in one direction and is almost zero in another direction.

     

DEFINITION

Electronics is the study of how to control the flow of electrons. It deals with circuits made up of components that control the flow of electricity. Electronics is a part of physics and electrical engineering. Electrical components like transistors and relays can act as switches.

 

SEMICONDUCTORS

The elements whose conductivity lies between metal and insulator. Most frequently used semiconductors in construction of electronic devices are Ge, Si, and GaAs.
It is of two types:

  • i. Intrisic semiconductors
  • ii. Extrinsic semiconductor 

i. Intrinsic semiconductor: 

A semiconductor in its natural pure form is called an intrinsic semiconductor. the conductivity od an intrinsic semiconductor is solely determined by the thermally generated carriers.
The pure form of semiconductor is an intrinsic semiconductor.

 

ii. Extrinsic semiconductor: 

A semiconductor containing impurity atoms is called the doped, impurity, or extrinsic semiconductor. The proces of adding imprurities to a semicobductor is known as doping and the impurity that is added is called the dopant.
Depending upon the type of impurity added in pure Ge or Si, the extrinsic semiconductors are further subdivided into two groups:

  • n-type
  • p-type

n-type: An n-type semiconductor is created by the introduction of impurity elements that have five valence electrons(Pentavalent); such as Antinomy, Arsenic, and phosphorus that is the 5th group of elements in the periodic table.

Diffused impurities with five valence electrons are called Donor Atoms.

The n-type semiconductor so formed is electrically neutral because ideally, the number of positively charged protons in the nuclei is equal to the number of free and orbiting negatively charged electrons in the structure.

 

p-type: p-type material is formed by doping a pure Germanium (Ge) or Silicon(Si) crystal with impurity atoms having three valence electrons. The elements most frequently used are 3rd group elements of the periodic table such as Boron, Gallium, and Indium.

The diffused impurities with three valence electrons are called acceptor atoms.

the resulting p-material is neutral for the same reason described for the n-type material.

 

 

Majority and Minority Carriers

 

In the intrinsic semiconductor, the number of free electrons is due to those few electrons only in the valence band that has to acquire sufficient energy from thermal or light source to break the covalent bond or to the few impurities that could not be removed.

The vacancies left behind in the covalent bonding structure represent very limited supplied of holes.

In n-type material, the number of holes has not changed significantly from the intrinsic level. The resultant is that number of electrons is more than the number of holes. So, the electron is the majority carriers and the hole is the minority carrier.

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