5. Glossary

annealing:

High temperature furnace operation that can relieve stress in silicon, activates or moves the dopants, densifies different types of films and repairs the damage appeared during the wafers processing.

charge carrier:

Free electrons or holes in the semiconductor.

conductor:

Materials where the valence band is either not fully occupied with electrons, or the filled valence band overlaps with the empty conduction band. Electrons can move inside the partially filled valence band or in the conduction band. There is no band gap.

dark current:

Electric current caused by the random generation of electrons and holes within the depletion region of the device when there is no incident light...