This study describes the doping effect of Yb2O3 on microstructure, electrical and dielectric properties of ZnO-V2O5- MnO2-Nb2O5 (ZVMN) ceramic semiconductors sintered at a temperature as low as 900°C. As the doping content of Yb2O3 increases, the ceramic density slightly increases from 5.50 to 5.54 g/cm3; also, the average ZnO grain size is in the range of 5.3-5.6 μm. The switching voltage increases from 4,874 to 5,494 V/cm when the doping content of Yb2O3 is less than 0.1 mol%, whereas further doping decreases this value. The ZVMN ceramic semiconductors doped with 0.1 mol% Yb2O3 reveal an excellent nonohmic coefficient as high as 70. The donor density of ZnO gain increases in the range of 2.46-7.41×1017 cm−3 with increasing doping content of Yb2O3 and the potential barrier height and surface state density at the grain boundaries exhibits a maximum value (1.25 eV) at 0.1 mol%. The dielectric constant (at 1 kHz) decreases from 592.7 to 501.4 until the doping content of Yb2O3 reaches 0.1 mol%, whereas further doping increases it. The value of tanδ increases from 0.209 to 0.268 with the doping content of Yb2O3.

The properties of zinc oxynitride semiconductors and their associated thin film transistors are studied. Reactively sputtered zinc oxynitride films exhibit n-type conduction, and nitrogen-rich compositions result in relatively high electron mobility. Nitrogen vacancies are anticipated to act as shallow electron donors, as their calculated formation energy is lowest among the possible types of point defects. The carrier density can be reduced by substituting zinc with metals such as gallium or aluminum, which form stronger bonds with nitrogen than zinc does. The electrical properties of gallium-doped zinc oxynitride thin films and their respective devices demonstrate the carrier suppression effect accordingly.

We analysed interfacial traps in organic thin-film transistors (TFTs) in which pentacene and 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)-pentacene (TIPS-pentacene) organic semiconductors were deposited by means of vacuum-thermal evaporation and drop-coating methods, respectively. The thermally-deposited pentacene film consists of dentritic grains with the average grain size of around 1 ?m, while plate-like crystals over a few hundred microns are observed in the solution-processed TIPS-pentacene film. From the transfer characteristics of both TFTs, lower subthreshold slope of 1.02 V/decade was obtained in the TIPS-pentacene TFT, compared to that (2.63 V/decade) of the pentacene transistor. The interfacial trap density values calculated from the subthreshold slope are about 3.4×1012/cm2 and 9.4×1012/cm2 for the TIPS-pentacene and pentacene TFTs, respectively. Herein, lower subthreshold slope and less interfacial traps in TIPS-pentacene TFTs are attributed to less domain boundaries in the solution-processed TIPS-pentacene film.

반도체는 현대문명의 쌀과 같다. 우리가 일상생활에서 사용하는 선풍기, 라디오, TV, 전화기, 컴퓨터 등 모든 전지 제품에 반도체가 사용된다. 또한 청정에너지인 태양광 발전도 반도체인 태양전지 판을 이용하여 전기를 생산한다. 바람을 이용한 풍력 발전도 발전된 전기를 제어하는 곳에는 반도체가 쓰인다. 조력, 지열, 화력, 수력 발전의 제어 부분에도 역시 반도체가 사용되며, 결과적으로 우리가 향유하는 현대 문명기기는 반도체의 결정체이다. 본 논문에서는 이처럼 중요한 현대 문명의 근간이 되는 반도체의 원리와 가장 기본적인 반도체인 다이오드에 관하여 고찰 해본다.