Does Ohm's Law Apply to a Semiconductor?
Investigation
Online Resources - Investigation - Assessment
Look at some of the test results and try to determine the following:Find the data you need in the graph below:
- Do silicon semiconductors obey Ohm's Law in general? Do they sometimes obey Ohm's Law? Exactly? Approximately?
- How does neutron radiation affect the resistance of a silicon strip?
- Can you construct a graph and/or an equation to show the resistance R of a silicon strip as a function of the number of neutrons N incident upon that strip?
- Why do you think neutron radiation affects the resistance of a silicon strip? How could your hypothesis be tested?
Explanation of the data: The number of incident neutrons on this detector varies, in approximately equal increments, from 0 at 13:49 on 8/10/99 to 13.9 x 1014 neutrons at the conclusion of the data run at 14:23 on 8/11/99. Thus the neutron bombardment for each run is given in the table below. 
Date Time Neutrons Incident 8/10/99 13:49 0 8/10/99 20:25 3.5 x 1014 8/11/99 2:17 7.0 x 1014 8/11/99 8:20 10.4 x 1014 8/11/99 14:23 13.9 x 1014