Question

What are conductors, semiconductors, non-conductors, dielectrics?

Answer 1

Conductors are substances that pass an electrical charge.

Semiconductors are substances whose electrical conductivity is lower than that of metals and greater than that of dielectrics.

Electricity nonconductors or insulators - in the terminology of Faraday - dielectrics (see). N. perfect does not exist; they represent only a large resistance to galvanic current and then different bodies in varying degrees (see Galvanic current), so that between poor and good conductors there are many bodies of average conductivity. N. The galvanic current is also the best insulators of static electricity. N. Heat or its bad conductors are at the same time electrical insulators (see Thermal Conductivity).

A dielectric (insulator) is a substance that is poorly conducting or not conducting at all. The concentration of free charge carriers in a dielectric does not exceed 108 cm-3. The main property of the dielectric is the ability to polarize in an external electric field. From the point of view of the band theory of a solid body, a dielectric is a substance with a band gap greater than 3 eV.