Remember that the conductivity of semiconductors also depends on temperature, as we can see in the following graph:
- Specifically this graph represents the conductivity of n-type doped silicon.
- represents the density of “ionazied” donors.
For n-type silicon this is because the dopants lose an electron in favor of the atoms of silicon, in the material.
NOTE: The ionazied term means the dopants that contribuite to conduction, so the “active” dopants.
~Ex.: in case of donors the electron that from the “donors extrinsix band” () has gone to the condution band.
The conductivity depends on temperature also for metals, but the graph is vastly different:
