Title: charge carrier
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - charge carrier
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.08775
Status: current

Definition
Particle or quasiparticle capable of transporting an electric charge.

Note
A charge carrier can be free (mobile) or trapped (immobile).

Example
Charge carriers are electrons, electron holes, protons or other ions, charged solitons, polarons or bipolarons.

Related Terms
- Coulomb radius: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/08787
- electron holes: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/08826
- quasiparticle: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/08863

Source
- PAC, 2022, 94, 15. 'Glossary of terms relating to electronic, photonic and magnetic properties of polymers (IUPAC Recommendations 2021)' on page 17 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2020-0501)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/08775/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/08775/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/08775/xml

Citation: Citation: 'charge carrier' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.08775
License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms.
Collection: If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .
Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.
Accessed: 2026-07-13T01:23:17+00:00