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Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

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Range of conductivites exhibited by various materials

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

6. ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY OF NONMETALS

All metals are good conductors because they have a very large number of
conduction electrons free inside the metal.
Conductors are intimately identified with metals. It is more appropriate to view
insulators as High resistivity (or low conductivity) materials.

6.1 SEMICONDUCTORS
We know from classical physics (the kinetic molecular theory and Boltzmann
distribution) that all the atoms in the crystal are executing vibrations with a
distribution of energies.
As the temperature increases, the distribution spreads to higher energies.
Statistically some of the atomic vibrations will be sufficiently energetic to
rupture a bond as indicated in Figure 12 a.
This releases and electron from the bond which is free to wander inside the
crystal. The free electron can drift in the presence of an applied field; it is called
a conduction electron.

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

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6. ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY OF NONMETALS

Figure 12
(a) Thermal vibrations of the atoms rupture a bond and release a free electron into the
crystal. A hole is left in the broken bond which has an effective positive charge.
(b) An electron in a neighboring bond can jump and repair this bond and thereby create a
hole in its original site; the hole has been displaced.
(c) When a field is applied both holes and electrons contribute to electrical conduction.
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

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6. ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY OF NONMETALS

As an electron has been removed from a region of the crystal that is otherwise
neutral, the broken-bond region has a net positive charge. This broken-bond
region is called a hole (h+).
When a field is applied, both holes and electrons contribute to electrical
conduction.

It is also possible to create free electrons or holes by intentionally doping a

semiconductor crystal, that is substituting impurity atoms for some of the Si
atoms. Defects can also generate free carriers.
If electrons and holes have drift mobilities of e and h, respectively, then the
overall conductivity of the crystal is given by

= eph + ene
Even though carrier drift mobilities in most semiconductors are higher than
electron drift mobilities in metals, semiconductors have much lower
conductivities due to their lower concentration of free charge carriers.

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

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6. ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY OF NONMETALS

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6.2 IONIC CRYSTALS AND GLASSES

Crystal defects in an ionic crystal lead to mobile charges that can contribute to
the conduction process.

Figure 13 Possible contribution to the conductivity of ceramic and glass insulators.

(a) Possible mobile charges in a ceramic.
(b) An Na+ ion in the glass structure diffuses and therefore drifts in the direction of the field.
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

F.N.E.
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6. ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY OF NONMETALS

Many solids have interstitial impurities which are often ionized or charged.
These interstitial ions can jump, i.e., diffuse, from one interstitial site to
another and hence drift by diffusion in the presence of a field.
Aided by the field, the Na+ can jump from one interstice to a neighboring
interstice along the field and thereby drift in the glass and contribute to current
conduction. The conduction process is then essentially field-directed diffusion.
Conductivity of the material depends on all the conduction mechanisms with
each species of charge carrier making a contribution, so it is given by

[4]

ni is the concentration, qi is the charge carried by the charge carrier species of

type i (for electrons and holes qi = e), and i is the drift mobility of these
carriers.

= 0 exp

E
kT

Where E is the activation energy for conductivity.

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

6. ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY OF NONMETALS

Figure 14 shows examples of the temperature dependence of conductivity for
various high-resistivity solids: oxide ceramics, glasses, and polymers. When
Equation [4] is plotted as log () versus 1/T, the result is a straight line with a
negative slope that indicates the activation energy E.

Figure 14 Conductivity versus reciprocal temperature for various low-conductivity

solids SOURCE: Data selectively combined from numerous sources.
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7. SKIN EFFECT: HF RESISTANCE OF A CONDUCTOR

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The currents I1 in the solid and I2 in hollow cylinders sum to I.

I1 flowing in the inner conductor is threaded (or linked) by both B1 and B2.

I2

I1
Figure 15 Illustration of the skin effect. A hypothetical cut
produces a hallow outer cylinder and a solid inner cylinder.
Cut is placed where it would give equal current in each
section. The two sections are in parallel so that the currents
in (b) and (c) sum to that in (a).
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

Figure 16 At high frequencies,

the core region exhibits more
inductive impedance than the
surface region, and the current
flows in the surface region of
conductor defined
approximately
by the skin depth, .

7. SKIN EFFECT: HF RESISTANCE OF A CONDUCTOR

Recall that inductance is defined as the total magnetic flux threaded per unit
current. Consequently, and ac current will prefer paths near the surface where
the inductive impedance is smaller. As the frequency increases, the current is
confined more and more to the surface region.
Most of the current flows in a surface region of depth , called the skin depth.
In the central region, the current will be negligibly small. The skin depth will
obviously depend on the frequency .

1
1

Where is the angular frequency of the current, is the conductivity ( is

constant from dc up to ~1014 Hz in metals).
is the magnetic permeability of the medium, which is the product of the
absolute (free space) permeability 0 and the relative permeability r.

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

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7. SKIN EFFECT: HF RESISTANCE OF A CONDUCTOR

With the skin depth known, the effective cross-sectional area is given
approximately by

A = a2 (a )2 2a
Where 2 is neglected ( a). The ac resistance rac of the conductor per unit
length is.

rac =
A 2a
Where is the ac resistivity at the frequency of interest, which for all practical
purposes is equal to the dc resistivity of the metal.
As increases, decreases, by virtue of -1/2 and, as a result, rac increases.
The skin effect arises because the magnetic field of the ac current in the
conductor restricts the current flow to the surface region within a depth of <
a.

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

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8. THIN METAL FILMS

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8.1 CONDUCTION IN THIN METAL FILMS

Any dimension of the specimen is much larger than the mean free path for electron
scattering. In such cases resistivity is determined by scattering from lattice vibrations
and, if significant, scattering from various impurities and defects in the crystal.

8.2 RESISTIVITY OF THIN FILMS

In a highly polycrystalline sample the conduction electrons are more likely to be

scattered by grain boundaries than by other processes as depicted in Figure 17.

The conduction electron is free within a grain, but becomes scattered at the grain
boundary. Its mean free path lgrains is therefore roughly equal to the average grain
size d.
Figure 17
(a) Grain boundaries cause scattering of the
electron and therefore add to the
Resistivity by the Matthiessens rule.
(b) For a very grainy solid, the electron is
scattered from grain boundary to grain
boundary and the mean free path is
approximately equal to the mean grain
diameter.
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

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8. THIN METAL FILMS

If = lcrystal is the mean free path of the conduction electrons in the single
crystal (no grain boundaries).
1

l = lcrystal + lgrains = +
The resistivity is inversely proportional to the mean free path which means that
the resistivity of the bulk single crystal crystal 1/ and the resistivity of the
polycrystalline sample 1/l. Thus,

=
1
+
With a smaller grain diameter d
crystal

Figure 18 Conduction in thin films

may be controlled by scattering from
the surfaces

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

8. THIN METAL FILMS

There is a possibility that the electron may be totally reflected back at a grain
boundary (bounce back). Suppose that the probability of reflection at a grain
boundary is R.

R
= 1R
For copper, typical R values are 0.24 to 0.40, and R is somewhat smaller for Al.
Assume that the scattering from the surface is inelastic; that is, the electron
loses the grained velocity from the field.
The direction of the electron after the scattering process is independent of the
direction before the scattering process. This type of scattering is called
nonspecular.
The mean free path lsurf of the electron will depend on its direction right after
the scattering.

Figure 19 The mean free path of the

electron depends on the angle after
scattering.

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8. THIN METAL FILMS

It therefore takes two collisions to randomize the velocity, which means that
the effective mean free path must be twice as long, that is 2D/cos .
Overall mean free path l for calculating the resistivity we must use
Matthiessens rule. If is the mean free path of the conduction electrons in the
bulk crystal (no surface scattering), then
1
1
1 cos
=
+
=
l lsuf + 2D
1

Average for all possible values per scattering, from /2 to + /2.

=1+
l
D
The resistivity of the bulk crystal is bulk 1/, and the resistivity of the film is
1/l. Thus

1
=
1
+
bulk
D

bulk
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

3
1 + 8D(1 P)

D
> 0.3

[5]

8. THIN METAL FILMS

For elastic or specular scattering P = 1 and there is no change in the resistivity.
For p = 0, Equation [5] predicts /bulk 1.20 for roughly D 1.9 or a thickness
D 75 nm for Cu for which 40 nm. The value of p depends on the film
preparation method.
It is generally very difficult to separate the effects of surface and grain boundary

scattering in thin poly crystalline films; the contribution from grain boundary
scattering is likely to exceed that from the surfaces. In any event, both
contributions, by Matthiessems general rule, increase the overall resistivity.
In this case, annealing (heat treating) the films to reduce the polycrystallinity
does not significantly affect the resistivity because film is controlled primarily
by surface scattering and is given by Equation [5].

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

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Figure 20

(a) film of the Cu polycrystalline films vs. reciprocal mean grain size (diameter), 1/d. Film
thickness D = 250 nm - 900 nm does not affect the resistivity. The straight line is film = 17.8
n m + (595 n m nm)(1/d),
(b) film of the Cu thin polycrystalline films vs. film thickness D. In this case, annealing (heat
treating) the films to reduce the polycrystallinity does not significantly affect the resistivity
because film is controlled mainly by surface scattering.
|SOURCE: Data extracted from (a) S. Riedel et al, Microelec. Engin. 33, 165, 1997 and (b). W. Lim et al,
Appl. Surf. Sci., 217, 95, 2003)
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

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Three levels of interconnects in a flash memory chip.

Different levels are connected through vias.
|SOURCE: Courtesy of Dr. Don Scansen,
Semiconductor Insights, Kanata, Ontario, Canada

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

9. INTERCONNECTS IN MICROELECTRONICS
Aluminum and Al alloys, or Al silicides, have been the workhouse of the
interconnects, but todays fast chips rely on copper interconnects.
First, copper has a resistivity that is about 40 percent lower than that of Al.
High-transistor-density chips in which various voltages are switched on and off
limits the speed of operation is the RC time constant.

The time constant that is involved in charging and discharging the capacitance
between the interconnects.
Input capacitance of the transistor; usually the former dominates. (advantages)
The RC is substantially reduced with Cu replacing Al so that the chip speed

is faster.
The second advantage is that a lower overall interconnect resistance leads
to a lower power consumption, lower I2R.
The third advantage is that copper has superior resistance to electromigration, a process in which metal atoms are forced to migrate by a large
current density. Such electro-migration can eventually lead to a failure of
the interconnect.

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

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