Theory of Electron Transport in Semiconductors

Authors: Fischetti, Massimo V., Vandenberghe, William G.
Comprehensive treatment of electronic structure of and transport in solids including nanostructures
Includes a historical perspective on the evolution of quantum theory and how it has shaped our knowledge of electrons in crystals
Rigorous mathematical development is supplemented by numerical and computational methodologies which convey a practical understanding of the challenges and successes of using quantum mechanics for real world applications
Exercises for students, based on homework problems assigned by the authors, and suggested reading will be included

This textbook is aimed at second-year graduate students in Physics, Electrical Engineer­ing, or Materials Science.
It presents a rigorous introduction to electronic transport in solids, especially at the nanometer scale.Understanding electronic transport in solids requires some basic knowledge of Ham­iltonian Classical Mechanics, Quantum Mechanics, Condensed Matter Theory, and Statistical Mechanics. Hence, this book discusses those sub-topics which are required to deal with electronic transport in a single, self-contained course.

This textbook is aimed at second-year graduate students in Physics, Electrical Engineer­ing, or Materials Science.

General theory.- Drift velocity and diffusion coefficients from time-of-flight measurements.- Transport parameters from microwave conductivity and noise measurements.- Multivalued distributions of hot electrons between equivalent valleys.

Discovery of new transport phenomena and invention of electron devices through exploitation of these phenomena have caused a great deal of interest in the properties of compound semiconductors in recent years. Extensive re­ search has been devoted to the accumulation of experimental results, par­ ticularly about the artificially synthesised compounds. Significant ad­ vances have also been made in the improvement of the related theory so that the values of the various transport coefficients may be calculated with suf­ ficient accuracy by taking into account all the complexities of energy band structure and electron scattering mechanisms. Knowledge about these deve­ lopments may, however, be gathered only from original research contributions, scattered in scientific journals and conference proceedings. Review articles have been published from time to time, but they deal with one particular material or a particular phenomenon and are written at an advanced level. Available text books on semiconductor physics, do not cover the subject in any detail since many of them were written decades ago. There is, there­ fore, a definite need for a book, giving a comprehensive account of electron transport in compound semiconductors and covering the introductory material as well as the current work. The present book is an attempt to fill this gap in the literature. The first chapter briefly reviews the history of the developement of compound semiconductors and their applications. It is also an introduction to the contents of the book.

A comprehensive review of cutting-edge solid state research, focusing on quantum dot nanostructures, this book features a broad range of techniques for fabrication of these nano-structured semiconductors and control of their quantum properties. It is a valuable resource for graduate students and researchers new to this field.