Mumbai university > FE > SEM 1 > Applied Physics 1

Marks: 5M

Year: May 2014

In physics, a hole is an electric charge carrier with a positive charge, equal in magnitude but opposite in polarity to the charge on the electron. Holes and electrons are the two types of charge carriers responsible for current in semiconductor materials.

A hole is the absence of an electron in a particular place in an atom. Although it is not a physical particle in the same sense as an electron, a hole can be passed from atom to atom in a semiconductor material. Electrons orbit the nucleus at defined energy levels called bands or shells. A hole forms in an atom when an electron moves from the so-called valenceband (the shell outside the closed shells that is partially or completely filled with electrons) into the conductionband (the outer "cloud" from which electrons most easily escape from, or are accepted by, the atom).