Is the P-N junction the only means to acheive a depletion region?

[abotiz]

Hi,

I have a quick question. When constructing a semiconductor diode, the P-N junction is used to create a depletion region (depleted of mobile majority carriers) which is the active volume of the diode/detector. The region enables an electric current generated from the incomming radiation to be measured, due to the fact that the majority carriers are removed (they contribute to a current of order 0.1A, and radiation induced current is like 0.00001A).

My question is, is the P-N junction the only means to achieve a depletion region?

E.g if I took a (100%) pure crystal and applied a bias voltage to sweep away the electrons that were thermally excited, I would remove the majority carriers just like in the P-N junction. Does this statement fail to hold only due to the fact that there is no 100% pure crystal? And that any small amount of impurities drastically alters the crystals properties? Or is there another reason?

Thank you for your time!

 

[M Quack]

No, you can also get it by applying an electric field across an insulating layer, e.g. in a FET.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depletion_region

Even in a pure crystal you always get thermal production of electron-hole pairs. So you either have to cool the semiconductor to a temperature where k_B T << band gap, or use a material with large band gap at room temperature. Such materials are usually called insulators and not semiconductors.

For this reason Germanium detectors for x- and gamma rays are usually operated at liquid nitrogen temperature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanium_detector