What is Drift Velocity? , Electromagnetism
 

The drift velocity is the average velocity (not speed) that a particle, such as an electron, attains due to an electric field. In general, an electron will rattle around in a conductor at the Fermi velocity randomly. An applied electric field will give this random motion a small net velocity in one direction
In a semiconductor, the two main carrier scattering mechanisms are ionized impurity scattering and lattice scattering.
Because current is proportional to drift velocity, which is, in turn, proportional to the magnitude of an external electric field, Ohm's law can be explained in terms of drift velocity.
Drift velocity is expressed in the following equations:

• http://content.answers.com/main/cont...892023f49e.png, where ρ is charge density in units C/m³, and vavg is the average velocity of the carriers;
• http://content.answers.com/main/cont...8da2658772.png, where μ is the electron mobility in m²/(V·s) and E is the electric field in V/m.

Derivation

To find an equation for drift velocity, one can begin with the very definition of current:
http://content.answers.com/main/cont...bf17cac950.png where ΔQ is the small amount of charge that passes through an area in a small unit of time, Δt. One can relate ΔQ to the motion of charged particles in a wire expecting a dependence on the number density of the charge carriers and using dimensional analysis:
ΔQ http://content.answers.com/main/cont...e933077e79.png
http://content.answers.com/main/cont...64853711cf.png where n is the number of charge carriers per unit volumeA is the cross sectional areaΔx is a small length along the wireq is the charge of the charge carriers Now, normally particles move randomly, but under the influence of an electric field in the wire, the charge carriers gain an average velocity in a specific direction. This is what's called drift velocity, vd. And since Δx = vd Δt, we can plug it into the above equation.
http://content.answers.com/main/cont...4a3314e3cb.png Putting that back into the original equation and re-arranging to solve for the drift velocity:
http://content.answers.com/main/cont...2e1a886716.png Alternative derivation Using the definition of current density:
http://content.answers.com/main/cont...3d33376f1f.png where ρ is the density of charge per volume and the fact that
http://content.answers.com/main/cont...597a82b2a6.png We can simply express:
http://content.answers.com/main/cont...e188e48333.png to get
http://content.answers.com/main/cont...38e1d99bbb.png and the same result as above:
http://content.answers.com/main/cont...2e1a886716.png