Analysis of the dependence of critical electric field on semiconductor bandgap

Understanding of semiconductor breakdown under high electric fields is an important aspect of materials’ properties, particularly for the design of power devices. For decades, a power-law has been used to describe the dependence of material-specific critical electrical field ( ℰ_crit ) at which the material breaks down and bandgap ( E g ) . The relationship is often used to gauge tradeoffs of emerging materials whose properties haven’t yet been determined. Unfortunately, the reported dependencies of ℰ_crit on E g cover a surprisingly wide range in the literature. Moreover, ℰ_crit is a function of material doping. Further, discrepancies arise in ℰ_crit values owing to differences between punch-through and non-punch-through device structures. We report a new normalization procedure that enables comparison of critical electric field values across materials, doping, and different device types. An extensive examination of numerous references reveals that the dependence ℰ_crit ∝ E g 1.83 best fits the most reliable and newest data for both direct and indirect semiconductors. Graphical abstract