elektronhole

An electron hole, or simply a hole, is a quasi-particle that represents the absence of an electron in a filled valence band of a crystalline solid, most commonly in semiconductors. In a perfect crystal at low temperature, valence-band states are filled; removing an electron creates a vacancy that can move as surrounding electrons shift to fill it. Although it is a vacancy, a hole behaves as a positively charged particle with charge +e and participates in electrical conduction.

Holes transport charge through the lattice as electrons move between neighboring states. In response to an electric field, the configured movement of electrons makes the vacancy appear to drift in the opposite direction, which is equivalent to a positive charge carrier moving with a certain mobility. The effective mass of holes, a parameter that influences their dynamics, can differ from that of electrons, and hole mobility is often lower in many materials, though this depends on the material and its band structure.

Generation and recombination are key processes. Electron-hole pairs are created thermally or by photon absorption with energy above the band gap. Recombination occurs when an electron fills a hole, releasing energy that may be dissipated as heat (in bulk) or as light (in light-emitting materials).

Applications and modeling typically describe materials in terms of hole concentration (p) and electron concentration (n). The overall conductivity is given by q(nμn + pμp), where μn and μp are the electron and hole mobilities. Holes are central to the operation of many electronic devices, especially p-type semiconductors, diodes, and transistors, where they serve as the primary positive charge carriers in conjunction with electrons.