Dr. Ahmed G. Abo-Khalil

Electrical Engineering Department

Charge carrier

In physics, a charge carrier is a free particle carrying an electric charge, especially the particles that carry electric currents in electrical conductors. Examples are electrons, ions and holes. In a conducting medium, an electric field can exert force on these free particles, causing a net motion of the particles through the medium; this is what constitutes an electric current. In different conducting media, different particles serve to carry charge:

  • In ionic solutions, such as salt water, the charge carriers are ions, atoms or molecules that have gained or lost electrons so they are electrically charged. Atoms that have gained electrons so they are negatively charged are called anions, atoms that have lost electrons so they are positively charged are called cations. Cations and anions of the dissociated liquid also serve as charge carriers in melted ionic solids (see e.g. the Hall–Héroult process for an example of electrolysis of a melted ionic solid.
  • In semiconductors, the material used to make electronic components like transistors and integrated circuits (ICs), in addition to electrons, the travelling vacancies in the valence-band electron population, called "holes", act as mobile positive charges and are treated as charge carriers. Electrons and holes are the charge carriers in semiconductors.


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