An alternative form of Hooge's relation for 1/f noise in semiconductor materials

Single quantum dots and other materials exhibit irregular switching between on and off states; these on–off states follow power-law statistics giving rise to 1/f noise. We transfer this phenomenon (also referred to as on–off intermittency) to the generation and recombination (= g–r) process in semiconductor materials. In addition to g–r noise we obtain 1/f noise that can be provided in the form of Hooge's relation. The predicted Hooge coefficient is ${\alpha }_H={\alpha }_X{\alpha }_{im}$ whereby ${\alpha }_X$ depends on the parameters of the g–r noise and ${\alpha }_{im}$ on the parameters of the intermittency. Due to the power-law distribution of the on-times, the coefficient ${\alpha }_{im}$ shows a smooth dependence on time t. We also suggest an alternative form of Hooge's 1/f noise formula relating the 1/f noise to the number of centers (such as donor or trap atoms) rather than to the number of charge carriers as defined by Hooge.