An Inexpensive Semiconducting Device Laboratory: Building a Schottky Barrier Diode

Semiconductor devices, usually made from silicon wafers, are present in the electronic gadgets that we use on a daily basis. In an introductory physics class, the textbook usually devotes a few pages to these devices and moves on. As a result, students may readily forget the material or fail to see how it relates to their lives. A solution is to have the student build a simple semiconductor device such as a diode. Generally, the process for making these devices is expensive, dangerous, and time consuming. While there has been some success in reducing these challenges for certain devices, labs that do this are mostly limited to upper-division engineering or physics classes. The purpose of this paper is to describe a method that can be followed to build a diode from a silicon wafer in less than an hour with limited equipment and with no exposure to dangerous chemicals. This lab can be conducted at the high school level or in an introductory college physics class. It requires an investment of less than $100 for the equipment and consumable materials.