Semiconductor materials with disorder: Materials issues and device implications

半导体是存在于电子器件内的有源电子材料。通过对此类器件中使用的半导体的材料特性的深入理解，电子学取得了很大的进步。已知无序在形成这些性质中起重要作用。非晶半导体在原子的基本分布中表现出无序，即，这些材料中的原子不以其晶体对应物的有序和周期性方式分布。在非晶格匹配衬底上生长为外延膜的半导体，例如在蓝宝石上生长的氮化镓，也表现出一种无序形式，即，穿透位错线，其从下面的衬底延伸到半导体材料中。这些不同形式的无序影响这些半导体的材料性质。因此，无序有可能改变使用这种半导体制造的电子器件的性能。

Semiconductors are the active electronic materials present within electron devices. A great deal of progress in electronics has been achieved through a deep understanding of the material properties of the semiconductors used within such devices. Disorder is known to play an important role in shaping these properties. Amorphous semiconductors exhibit disorder in the underlying distribution of atoms, i.e., the atoms within these materials are not distributed in the ordered and periodic manner of their crystalline counterparts. Semiconductors that are grown as epitaxial films on non-lattice matched substrates, such as gallium nitride grown on sapphire, also exhibit a form of disorder, i.e., threading dislocation lines, which extend from the underlying substrate into the semiconductor material. These various forms of disorder impact upon the material properties of these semiconductors. Consequently, disorder has the potential to alter the performance of the electron devices that are fabricated using such semiconductors.