3 ms·
Little known fact about semiconductors: nobody really knows how they work, beyond that doped substrate, it's all voodoo. And now, a cleansing ritual will have t
by speed_spread 5y ago
Little known fact about semiconductors: nobody really knows how they work, beyond that doped substrate, it's all voodoo. And now, a cleansing ritual will have to be performed before our Ryzens turn against us. Again.
- sunstone 5y agoNot quite correct. The condensed matter physicists do understand how they work. The problem is it's complicated so the "theory" they teach undergrads is dumbed down to be more palatable. The sleight of hand comes in where, in the beginning, the "holes" are atoms in the substrate that have lost an electron which, by the time the hall effect appears, those holes are now moving but in the beginning they were stationary. In fact, in semiconductor physics as taught, both the 'electron' and 'hole' are in fact quasi-particles and only tenuously connected to the electron of the standard model.