| People come to technical books with a vast array of daerent needs and requirements, arising from their differing educational backgrounds, professional orientations and career objectives. This is particularly evident in the field of semiconductors, which stands at the juncture of physics, chemistry, electronic engineering, material science and mathematics. No longer just an academic discipline. this field is at the heart of an ongoing revolution in communications, computation and electronic device applications, that innovate many fields and change modern life in myriad ways, large and small. Its profound impact and further potential command interest and attention from all corners of the earth. and from a wide variety of students and researchers.
The clear need to address a broadly diversified and variously motivated readership has weighed heavily in the authors’ considerations. It poses a pedagogical problem faced by many teachers of intermediate level courses on semiconductor physics. Generally speaking, every student has previously studied about half of the course materiaL The difficulty lies in the fact that each student’s exposure is likely to have been to a &fleerent half, depending on which lower level courses and teachers they have had, and where the emphasis lay. To accommodate readers with varied backgrounds we start from first principles and provide fully detaiIed explanations and proofs, assuming only that the reader is familiar with the Schrodinger equation. This intensively tutorial treatment of the electronic properties of semiconductors includes recent fundamental developments and is carried through to the physical principles of device operation, to meet the needs of readers interested in engineering aspects of semiconductors, as well as those interested in basic physics. Clarity of explanation and breadth of exposure relating to the electronic properties of semiconductors, from first principles to modern devices, are our principal objectives in this fraddy pedagogical book. We offer full mathematical derivations to strengthen understanding and discuss the physical significance of results. avoiding reliance on ‘hand waving arguments alone. |
