Silicon: electrons, holes, and how a "positive carrier" moves

Each dot is an atom bonded to its neighbours. Electrons sit in those bonds. Break a bond and one electron becomes free — leaving a hole, an empty slot that behaves like a mobile positive charge. This runs in slow motion so you can follow a single carrier.

Speed 0.60×
E field
0 electron hops 0 holes (h⁺) 0 free electrons (e⁻)
electron sitting in a covalent bond
free electron — mobile negative carrier
hole: a bond missing one electron — mobile positive carrier
the hole you are tracking
How to actually see it happen:
• The electron hops counter should tick up immediately — if it's climbing, the simulation is alive.
• Hit Pause, then press Step one hop repeatedly. Each press shows exactly one event: an electron on a neighbouring bond slides across into the empty slot. The bond it left is now the vacancy — so the hole has moved to where that electron came from, the opposite direction from the electron's motion.
• Turn on Track a hole to follow one hole. The cyan trail is its path; notice it is a chain of electrons doing the moving, not the hole itself.
• With the field pointing right, holes drift along the field and free electrons drift against it. With the field off, they only jiggle thermally — no net travel.