FUNDAMENTALS OF ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND DEVICES

The Romans built enduring bridges well before Newton came along, armed simply with a working knowledge of mechanics and materials. In contrast, today's bridge building is an elaborate enterprise involving CAD tools, composite materials and acoustic imaging. When technology is pushed to its limits, a working knowledge proves inadequate, and an in-depth understanding of core physical principles, both macroscopic and microscopic, top-down vs bottom-up, becomes essential. We find ourselves today at a similar crossroad in semiconductor device technology, where a working knowledge of solid state electronics is no longer enough. Faced with the prohibitive cost of computing and the slowdown of chip manufacturing, device scaling and the global supply chain, the semiconductor industry is forced to explore alternate platforms such as 2-D materials, spintronics, analog processing and quantum engineering. This book combines top-down classical device physics with bottom-up quantum transport in a single venue to provide the basis for such a scientific exploration. It is essential, easy reading for beginning undergraduate and practicing graduate students, physicists unfamiliar with device engineering and engineers untrained in quantum physics. With just a modest pre-requisite of freshman maths, the book works quickly through key concepts in quantum physics, Matlab exercises and original homeworks, to cover a wide range of topics from chemical bonding to Hofstader butterflies, domain walls to Chern insulators, solar cells to photodiodes, FinFETs to Majorana fermions. For the practicing device engineer, it provides new concepts such as the quantum of resistance, while for the practicing quantum physicist, it provides new contexts such as the tunnel transistor. Contents: Equilibrium Physics and Chemistry: Fundamentals of Information Processing Quantum Physics: A Whole New World Interpreting Quantum Probabilities Bumps Along the Quantum Path: Steps, Wells and Barriers Numerical Methods and Approximations Angular Momentum and the Hydrogen Atom Atomic and Molecular Structure Solids: From Bonds to Bands Spins and Magnetism How Do Spins Interact with Their Surroundings? Counting States Filling the States: Statistical Physics Top–Down: Classical Transport: Drift–Diffusion Physics of Mobility: Fermi's Golden Rule Physics of Recombination–Generation Engineering Barriers: The PN Junction Diode A Simple Switch: Bipolar Junction Transistor Voltage Gating: The Field Effect Transistor Bottom–Up: Quantum Transport: Landauer Theory for Quantum transport Quantum Transport with Scattering Non-Equilibrium Green's Function for Charge Non-Equilibrium Green's Function (NEGF) for Current Time-Dependent Effects Readership: Advanced undergraduates, graduates, researchers, and industry professionals in the following fields: condensed matter physics, nanoelectronics, semiconductor devices, nanomaterials, materials science, device physics, digital electronics. '... I have seen and used many texts. This is one of the best.' - Joe CampbellLucien Carr III Professor, University of Virginia Fellow, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Inventors '... contains well-crafted and advanced problems that help solidify understanding of the subjects.' - Philip KimProfessor, Harvard UniversityWinner, Oliver E Buckley Prize (2014) '... a wide-ranging book that brings together — all in one place — the physics of nanomaterials and quantum devices and is thus an essential resource for students in the field.' - Andrew KentProfessor of Physics and Director of the Center for Quantum Phenomena New York University '... a superb compendium of modern and important topics in classical and quantum device physics ... will quickly impart to the uninitiated a sound understanding of modern device principles and applied physics.' - Supriyo BandyopadhyayCommonwealth Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Virginia Commonwealth University '... addresses the critical need to...