Semiconductors are believed to be a unique class of chemical elements. People got known about these substances in the end of the 19th century, but only in the 20th century scientists managed to get more knowledge about them. Russian scientists performed lots of experiments. The results showed that semiconductors can help to generate the fluctuations and maintain them. During further years semiconductor assembly were ejected by tubes. The most significant event in the history of semiconductor devices was the creation of the first transistor by Bell corporation in 1949. Since then a lot of people all over the world become interested in such kind of substance as semiconductors.

Induced emission is really a very interesting feature of semiconductors that has been discovered for several tens of years. It led to the creation of semiconductor laser device based on usage of p - n barriers and then on heterojunction.

Nowadays we may see a great deal of various asymmetric GTO thyristors which operate with assistance of usage of semiconductors. In case there were no semiconductor devices used in modern technologies, we won't have an opportunity to carry out such great researches which are significant for other sciences.

Semiconductors are a broad class of matters that are characterized by the value of conductivity that is situated between the conductivities of metals and isolators. Such substances as germanium, silicon, selenium and some others are believed to be semiconductors.

It sounds a bit strange but scientists didn't want to perform researches of semiconductors for a long time. Abram Ioffe is a Russian scientist who started performing different experiments in field of semiconductors. He discovered that semiconductors are the divided class of crystals with some unique characteristics. Every semiconductor device has such basic characteristics as electron and hole conduction. The characteristics of semiconductor are related to the conditions they are placed. To get the features that are required for the experiment or proper usage of device some admixtures are added to semiconductors.

Almost every sphere of modern technologies means usage of semiconductors. Diodes, transistors and thyristors are the most often used devices. Their sophisticated characteristics are frequently used today, but they became widespread just ten years ago. There are devices based on semiconductors which can convert luminous and heat energy into electricity and vice versa. Heat and cold can be developed by some types of semiconductors. Semiconductors perform the main functions in many various devices: atomic batteries, quantum generators, processors and even primitive radio receivers. Such systems as disconnectors are commonly used in any construction connected to the electricity. The weight and size of semiconductor devices are considerably smaller than their tube variants. The analogue systems are not equal if we speak about their reliability and power. Tube drops behind.

We can't imagine how the humankind may exist without a lot of devices which are based on usage of semiconductors.



Recently:


Comments


Comments are closed.

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

Share your wisdom

  • Calendar

    June 2008
    M T W T F S S
    « May   Jul »
     1
    2345678
    9101112131415
    16171819202122
    23242526272829
    30