Widegap

Widegap, also written wide-gap or wide-bandgap, is a descriptive term used in science and engineering to denote a material, device, or spectrum characterized by a relatively large gap between two related quantities. In technical literature it most often refers to a large electronic band gap in semiconductors, but can also describe large spectral or density-of-states gaps in photonics or spectroscopy. The exact threshold is context-dependent, and the term is less formal than its counterpart wide-bandgap, which is the standard phrase in solid-state physics.

In semiconductor physics, wide-gap materials have band gaps larger than roughly 2 eV, which yields low intrinsic carrier concentrations at room temperature, high breakdown voltages, and resilience to high operating temperatures. Common examples include silicon carbide (SiC), gallium nitride (GaN), gallium oxide (Ga2O3), and diamond. These materials support devices such as high-efficiency power electronics, UV light emitters and detectors, and robust RF components. Growth and fabrication techniques include chemical vapor deposition, molecular beam epitaxy, hydride vapor-phase epitaxy, and bulk crystal growth, often requiring specialized equipment due to the chemical and structural properties of each material.

Outside electronics, the idea of a wide gap appears in spectroscopy and optics, where materials with wide optical gaps transmit and respond to ultraviolet light while remaining opaque to longer wavelengths. In data analysis or spectroscopy, a wide gap can also describe a large separation between measured features, gaps in a spectrum, or a temporal gap in datasets. The term's precise meaning depends on the field and the phenomenon being described.