Pre-Lab Questions to Lab 8 - Energy Gap of a Thermistor

1. Draw energy band structures for insulators, conductors, and semi-conductors and describe their characteristics.

2. Looking back at your Phy 182 class notes, describe the difference between Bose-Einstein statistics and Fermi-Dirac statistics. Which are at play in this lab? Describe how they vary as a function of temperature. (Note: a picture is worth a thousand words!)

3. Graph V = A exp[B/T] for three values of B. If B = E_g /2k, graph for E_g = 0.1 eV, 1 eV, and 10 eV (corresponding to different type of solids above). Comment on the amount of thermal energy required to create voltage changes in each case.

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