Hole is:

The correct answer is Option (2) → A vacancy created when an electron leaves a covalent bond

In a semiconductor crystal the atoms are held together by covalent bonds. When thermal energy frees an electron from a bond, the bond is left with a vacancy, and this vacancy behaves like a particle with a positive charge. It is called a hole.

Option (1) An anti-particle of electron — Incorrect. The anti-particle of the electron is the positron, a real particle. A hole is not a particle: it is the vacancy in a bond that behaves like a positive charge.

Option (3) Absence of free electron — Incorrect. A hole is the absence of a bonded electron in a covalent bond, not the absence of a free electron.

Option (4) An artificially created particle — Incorrect. Holes appear in the crystal itself, for example when an electron is thermally excited; they are not created artificially.

NCERT (2026-27):
Intrinsic Semiconductor – “… The neighbourhood, from which the free electron (with charge –q) has come out leaves a vacancy with an effective charge (+q). This vacancy with the effective positive electronic charge is called a hole.”