How ionization energy can be lower than band gap?

newuser
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
I am reading about the ionization energy in semiconductors and came across this thing that for Silicon, the ionization energy is lower than its band gap energy. I don't understand how can this be?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Is this for the ionization energy of an electron in the conduction band? It seems to me that there should be no problem having an ionization energy lower than the band gap. Why do you find it problematic?
 
Well that makes sense. The book does not says it explicitly so I guess what you say is the case.
 
I thought that was only the near the surface and when treated with a special coating. E.g. Ce on GaAs. I didn't think it was a bulk effect too. Are you reading a paper from before 1985? The history of semiconductors has a lot of back and forth.
 
@ rigetFrog: I was reading the book. The answer given by matterwave is correct. I has a silly confusion which is clear now.
 
Not an expert in QM. AFAIK, Schrödinger's equation is quite different from the classical wave equation. The former is an equation for the dynamics of the state of a (quantum?) system, the latter is an equation for the dynamics of a (classical) degree of freedom. As a matter of fact, Schrödinger's equation is first order in time derivatives, while the classical wave equation is second order. But, AFAIK, Schrödinger's equation is a wave equation; only its interpretation makes it non-classical...
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. Towards the end of the first lecture for the Qiskit Global Summer School 2025, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Olivia Lanes (Global Lead, Content and Education IBM) stated... Source: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/quantum-entanglement-is-a-kinematic-fact-not-a-dynamical-effect/ by @RUTA
Is it possible, and fruitful, to use certain conceptual and technical tools from effective field theory (coarse-graining/integrating-out, power-counting, matching, RG) to think about the relationship between the fundamental (quantum) and the emergent (classical), both to account for the quasi-autonomy of the classical level and to quantify residual quantum corrections? By “emergent,” I mean the following: after integrating out fast/irrelevant quantum degrees of freedom (high-energy modes...
Back
Top