Diamond has about 5.5eV of energy gap, So If I heat diamond it will get atleast 1J energy which is enough to excite about 10^18 electrons, But Diamond still not conduct electricity, Why?
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3$\begingroup$ The key parameter here is the temperature that you heat the material to. This will determine the equilibrium intrinsic carrier concentration. Note that this is a dynamic equilibrium between generation and recombination of carriers - exciting a bunch of carriers that then quickly recombine does not change the equilibrium concentration. $\endgroup$– Jon CusterCommented Sep 5, 2023 at 13:57
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1 Answer
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When you heat a solid to a temperature $T$ the random thermal energy available to the electrons in the valence band is of order $kT$. where $k$ is Boltzmann's constant. To get the $5.5~\textrm{eV}$ necessary for the electrons to jump into the conduction band you would have to heat the diamond to about $64000~\textrm{K}$, though obviously the diamond would vaporise long before this temperature was reached.
answered Sep 5, 2023 at 16:16