The aim of this article is to give a detailed account of the plane harmonic generalized
elasto-thermodiffusive (ETNP) waves in semiconductive materials. The shear (purely
transverse) waves get decoupled from the rest of the motion and remain independent
of the influence of other fields. These waves propagate without dispersion and
attenuation in semiconductors. The coupled system of partial differential equations,
governing the rest of the interacting fields, has been solved to obtain a complex
secular equation. According to the frequency equation, four coupled longitudinal
waves, namely, the quasithermoelastic (QTE), quasielastodiffusive (QEN/QEP),
quasithermodiffusive (QTN/QTP), and quasithermal (T-mode), can exist and
propagate in an infinite semiconductor. The complex secular equation of plane
harmonic waves in semiconductors is solved by using Descartes’ algorithm and the
irreducible case of Cardan’s method in order to obtain phase velocities and
attenuation coefficients of all possible coupled waves. The thermoelastic (ET),
elastodiffusive (EN/EP) and thermodiffusive (TN/TP) waves have also been
investigated as special cases. The derived theoretical results have been illustrated and
verified numerically for germanium (Ge) and silicon (Si) semiconductors.
The computed phase velocity and attenuation profiles have been presented
graphically.
Keywords
semiconductors, relaxation time, electrons and holes,
waves, germanium and silicon