Engineering Physics

8.10 Hall effect

When magnetic field is applied perpendicular to a current-carrying conductor, then a voltage is developed in the material perpendicular to both magnetic field and current in the conductor. This effect is known as Hall effect and the voltage developed is known as Hall voltage (V_H). Hall effect is useful to identify the nature of charge carriers in a material and hence to decide whether the material is n-type semiconductor or p-type semiconductor, also to calculate carrier concentration and mobility of carriers.

Hall effect can be explained by considering a rectangular block of an extrinsic semiconductor in which current is flowing along the positive X-direction and magnetic field B is applied along Z-direction as shown in Fig. ...