Semiconductor materials with disorder: Materials issues and device implications

半导体是存在于电子器件中的活性电子材料。通过对这种器件中使用的半导体材料特性的深入了解，电子学已经取得了很大的进步。众所周知，无序在塑造这些特性方面起着重要作用。非晶态半导体在原子的基本分布上表现出无序，即这些材料中的原子不是以其晶体原子的有序和周期性的方式分布的。在非晶格匹配的衬底上生长的半导体，例如生长在蓝宝石上的氮化镓，也表现出一种无序的形式，即从衬底延伸到半导体材料的穿线位错线。这些不同形式的无序影响着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.