What is Mobility?

How easily carriers move when an electric field is applied. In silicon, electron mobility is higher than hole mobility.

Field: Semiconductor physics

Mobility in the explanations

Questions that mention Mobility (63)

  1. Which correctly compares electron and hole mobility in silicon?
  2. What is the drift velocity of electrons with a mobility of 1000 cm²/V·s in an electric field of 100 V/cm?
  3. Which is the Einstein relation between the diffusion coefficient D and the mobility μ of carriers? (k: Boltzmann constant, T: absolute temperature, q: elementary charge)
  4. What is the approximate resistivity of n-type silicon with an electron density of 1×10¹⁶ cm⁻³ and an electron mobility of 1000 cm²/V·s? (Ignore holes; elementary charge 1.6×10⁻¹⁹ C)
  5. In lightly doped silicon, what is the main reason mobility decreases as temperature rises?
  6. Which is the correct unit of carrier mobility?
  7. With electron density n, hole density p, electron mobility μn, hole mobility μp and elementary charge q, which expression gives the conductivity σ of a semiconductor?
  8. How does carrier mobility generally change when the impurity concentration in silicon is increased?
  9. Which value is closest to the electron mobility in lightly doped silicon at room temperature?
  10. What is the main reason the channel mobility of a MOSFET is lower than the mobility inside bulk silicon?
  11. What is a typical application of HEMTs (high electron mobility transistors)?
  12. Which compound semiconductor, with very high electron mobility, is used in magnetic sensors (Hall elements) and the like?
  13. When a strong field is applied to GaAs, electrons transfer to another valley with lower mobility, and negative differential resistance appears in which current decreases as the field rises. Which oscillator device uses this?
  14. In a FinFET made in the usual orientation on a (100) wafer, the fin sidewalls that form the channel are mainly (110) planes. What is the effect on mobility?
  15. Which correctly describes how the resistivity of an intrinsic semiconductor depends on temperature?

Related terms

SiGe (silicon-germanium) GaAs (gallium arsenide) Effective mass CMOS Threshold voltage GAA (gate-all-around) GaN (gallium nitride) FinFET SiC (silicon carbide) Annealing

Back to the glossary