Energy at the Intrinsic Fermi Level and at the Fermi Level Pinning in the Bandgap of a Semiconductor

Abstract

This short communication describes a new way of finding energy levels in the bandgap of a semiconductor using the conductivity effective mass of electron for one valley at velocity saturation, especially in the cubic semiconductors. The already known method uses the density of states (DOS) carrier masses. The new method using the physics of the universal mass-energy equivalence relation in the differential form in semiconductors distinguishes between three types of energy levels. These energy levels are the intrinsic Fermi energy level, the pinned Fermi energy level due to high density of surface states in the bandgap, and charge neutrality level (CNL) which is the border of the donor and the acceptor states in a semiconductor bandgap. Examples of Si [100], Ge [100], GaAs [100], and amorphous thermal SiO₂ are taken to illustrate the above energy levels.