ECE
 EE 656

EE-656: Electronic Transport in Semiconductors

Fall Semesters, Alternate Years

Fall 2005

Course Objectives

The objective of the course is to develop a clear, physical understanding of charge carrier transport in bulk semiconductors and in small semiconductor devices.The emphasis is on transport physics and its consequences in a device context. The course does not focus on theory or computer simulation; it is a practical course for those interested in devices. The course is intended to be accessible to students with a general, introductory background in semiconductors, such as EE-606 at Purdue University. The specific course objectives are: 1) to develop a clear, physical understanding of charge and energy transport in bulk semiconductors and in small semiconductor devices and 2) to introduce commonly used transport-modeling approaches such as drift-diffusion, energy transport, Monte Carlo simulation, and quantum transport. The course consists of four parts. Part 1 focuses on ballistic transport – both semiclassical and quantum. (In ballistic transport, scattering can be ignored.) Part 2 focuses traditional, low-field transport theory based on the Boltzmann Transport Equation. It treats drift-diffusion charge transport as well as thermoelectric effects (heat flow and temperature gradients) and galvanomagnetic effects (magnetic and electric fields). In Part 3, we examine high-field transport – first in bulk semiconductors to explain phenomena such as velocity saturation and then in small devices where electric fields change rapidly and effects such as velocity overshoot arise.

This course is part of a new Curriculum for Nanoelectronics and Computing that is being developed by the NASA University Research, Education and Technology Network for Computational Nanotechnology.

An introductory lecture by Prof. M. Lundstrom (Fall 2004)

The Course in One Lecture Windows Media Player/PDF

Course Announcements

  • The final exam has been posted. The report is due on Dec. 14, 2005.