SEMICONDUCTOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY

Aim of this course is to provide students with advanced knowledge of Physics of semiconductor materials and superconducting materials and some devices based on them.

Lectures (LIM slides available).

Visit to research labs at DFA.

• Band structures and doping

Semiconductor structure and general properties - Bandgap formation - Energy band structure – Metals, insulators and semiconductors

Density of states and effective mass - Electons and Holes

Intrinsic semiconductor statistics - Mass action law - Acceptor and donors - Charge neutrality

Doped semiconductor statistics - Doping compensation - Thermal dependance of carrier density

• Electrical and optical properties

Conductance, scattering, mobility and thermal dependance - Einstein relation

Generation and recombination processes - Band-to-band recombination - Shockley, Read & Hall recombination - Experimental determination of carrier density and their mobility - Haynes Shockley experience

Free carrier absorption - Direct optical transition

Indirect optical absorption - Excitons - Light emission – Binary, ternary and quaternary semiconductors - Optical properties of heterostuctures and nanostructures

• Simple devices

Schottky diode

Metal/oxide/semicondutors systems - MOS capacitance - Flat band voltage

pn junction at equilibrium: band bending, depletion region, internal electric field

pn junction out of equilibrium: direct and inverse polarization, minority charge carriers injection and extraction, Shockley law: IV curve

pn junction: quasi Fermi level, CV curve, jnuction breakdown, transient behavior

Metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) - Light and gas sensors

• Semiconductor technologies

Doping technique - Ion implantation

Lithography - thermal diffusion

Moore Law - RIE (reactive ion etching), clean room, deionized water - Volatile and non volatile memories

Power devices

Electrochemical cells - Electrodes - Faraday law - reaction kinetics

Electrodeposition - Nernst-Einstein law - EIS (electrochemical impedance spectroscopy)

Ciclic and transient voltammetry

B. Sapoval, C. Hermann - Physics of Semiconductors - Springer-Verlag

S.M. Sze - Physics of Semiconductor Devices (3rd edition) - Wiley

L. Colombo - Fisica dei semiconduttori - Zanichelli

K. B. Oldham, J. C. Myland - Fundamentals of Electrochemical Science - Academic Press