A semiconductor material is one whose electrical properties lie in between those of insulators and good conductors. Examples are: germanium and silicon. In terms of energy bands, semiconductors can be defined as those materials which have almost an empty conduction band and almost filled valence band with a very narrow energy gap (of the order of 1 eV) separating the two.
An intrinsic semiconductor is one which is made of the semiconductor material in its extremely pure form. Examples of such semiconductors are: pure germanium and silicon which have forbidden energy gaps of 0.72 eV and 1.1 eV respectively. The energy gap is so small that even at ordinary room temperature; there are many electrons which possess sufficient energy to jump across the small energy gap between the valence and the conduction bands. 2 Alternatively, an intrinsic semiconductor may be defined as one in which the number of conduction electrons is equal to the number of holes. Schematic energy band diagram of an intrinsic semiconductor at room temperature is shown in Fig. below.
