Magnetic Susceptibility of Impurity-Trapped Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors

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Abstract
The magnetic susceptibility of charge carriers in impurity sites of a semiconductor is calculated in this paper. According to the impurity content two cases can be distinguished. For sufficiently low impurity concentration, the interaction between the impurity centers can be neglected and the paramagnetic contribution of the trapped carriers to the susceptibility is of the Langevin type, i.e., inversely proportional to the temperature. The onset of interaction at higher concentrations, however, causes the impurity level associated with isolated impurities to broaden into a quasi-continuous energy band. The electrons or holes in such a band are free to move through the crystal and thus, forming a Fermi gas, give rise to a Pauli paramagnetism which at low temperatures is practically constant. In both cases the orbital diamagnetism is essentially the same and independent of temperature.