Ebook: Basic semiconductor physics

This book presents a detailed description of the basic semiconductor physics. The reader is assumed to have a basic command of mathematics and some elementary knowledge of solid state physics. The text covers a wide range of important phenomena in semiconductors, from the simple to the advanced. The reader can understand three different methods of energy band calculations, empirical pseudo-potential, k.p perturbation and tight-binding methods. The effective mass approximation and electron motion in a periodic potential, Boltzmann transport equation and deformation potentials used for full band Monte Carlo simulation are discussed. Experiments and theoretical analysis of cyclotron resonance are discussed in detail because the results are essential to the understanding of semiconductor physics. Optical and transport properties, magneto-transport, two dimensional electron gas transport (HEMT and MOSFET), and quantum transport are reviewed, explaining optical transition, electron phonon interactions, electron mobility. Recent progress in quantum structures such as two-dimensional electron gas, superlattices, quantum Hall effect, electron confinement and the Landauer formula are included. The Quantum Hall effect is presented with different models. In the second edition, the addition energy and electronic structure of a quantum dot (artificial atom) are explained with the help of Slater determinants. Also the physics of semiconductor Lasers is described in detail including Einstein coefficients, stimulated emission, spontaneous emission, laser gain, double heterostructures, blue Lasers, optical confinement, laser modes, strained quantum wells lasers which will give insight into the physics of various kinds of semiconductor lasers, in addition to the various processes of luminescence.

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Covering the basics of this field, the text unsurprisingly has much content that is covered in other, well-established books, like Ashcroft and Mermin or Kittel. But perhaps what most distinguishes Hamaguchi's effort are the sections on superlattices and the quantum Hall effect. These are omitted from those other books, if only because when they were written, the phenomena had not been invented or discovered. But because of the importance of these subjects, it is good to have them here, in an introductory text. Hamaguchi also gives a comprehensive listing of the different types of scattering that happen in a semiconductor. But the brevity of space devoted to each really means this is little more than a definition of terms.