Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-condensed-matter-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2012/3/a/solution
Past exam of the condensed matter physics course of the University of Oxford 2012 3 a Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
Assume thermal equilibrium, nondegenerate carriers, and isotropic parabolic band dispersions, with the supplied effective masses interpreted as density-of-states masses. Take one effective valley with two electron spin states for each band; any additional valley multiplicity must instead be absorbed into the masses or explicit degeneracy factors.
Let the conduction band edge be , the valence band edge , and . The spin-summed conduction density of states per volume isUsing the nondegenerate limit of the Fermi-Dirac distribution and the substitution givesThe factor in the supplied integral produces the normalization. Counting missing valence band electrons similarly givesMultiplication cancels the chemical potential, establishing the semiconductor mass-action law:The result does not require an intrinsic semiconductor: semiconductor doping changes and separately while preserving this product under the stated equilibrium and nondegeneracy assumptions.
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