What is the depletion region in a semiconductor?

What is the depletion region in a semiconductor?

Step 1: Understand that a semiconductor is a material that can conduct electricity under certain conditions.
Step 2: Know that semiconductors have two types of charge carriers: electrons (negative) and holes (positive).
Step 3: When a semiconductor is doped (added with impurities), it creates regions with excess electrons (n-type) or holes (p-type).
Step 4: When n-type and p-type materials are joined together, electrons from the n-type region move to fill holes in the p-type region.
Step 5: This movement of charge carriers creates a region around the junction where there are no free charge carriers, called the depletion region.
Step 6: The depletion region has an electric field because of the fixed charges left behind when the charge carriers move.

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