Theory of Transport Properties of Semiconductor Nanostructures


Book Description

Recent advances in the fabrication of semiconductors have created almost un limited possibilities to design structures on a nanometre scale with extraordinary electronic and optoelectronic properties. The theoretical understanding of elec trical transport in such nanostructures is of utmost importance for future device applications. This represents a challenging issue of today's basic research since it requires advanced theoretical techniques to cope with the quantum limit of charge transport, ultrafast carrier dynamics and strongly nonlinear high-field ef fects. This book, which appears in the electronic materials series, presents an over view of the theoretical background and recent developments in the theory of electrical transport in semiconductor nanostructures. It contains 11 chapters which are written by experts in their fields. Starting with a tutorial introduction to the subject in Chapter 1, it proceeds to present different approaches to transport theory. The semiclassical Boltzmann transport equation is in the centre of the next three chapters. Hydrodynamic moment equations (Chapter 2), Monte Carlo techniques (Chapter 3) and the cellular au tomaton approach (Chapter 4) are introduced and illustrated with applications to nanometre structures and device simulation. A full quantum-transport theory covering the Kubo formalism and nonequilibrium Green's functions (Chapter 5) as well as the density matrix theory (Chapter 6) is then presented.




Semiconductor Nanostructures


Book Description

This introduction to the physics of semiconductor nanostructures and their transport properties emphasizes five fundamental transport phenomena: quantized conductance, tunnelling transport, the Aharonov-Bohm effect, the quantum Hall effect and the Coulomb blockade effect.




Characterization of Semiconductor Heterostructures and Nanostructures


Book Description

In the last couple of decades, high-performance electronic and optoelectronic devices based on semiconductor heterostructures have been required to obtain increasingly strict and well-defined performances, needing a detailed control, at the atomic level, of the structural composition of the buried interfaces. This goal has been achieved by an improvement of the epitaxial growth techniques and by the parallel use of increasingly sophisticated characterization techniques and of refined theoretical models based on ab initio approaches. This book deals with description of both characterization techniques and theoretical models needed to understand and predict the structural and electronic properties of semiconductor heterostructures and nanostructures. - Comprehensive collection of the most powerful characterization techniques for semiconductor heterostructures and nanostructures - Most of the chapters are authored by scientists that are among the top 10 worldwide in publication ranking of the specific field - Each chapter starts with a didactic introduction on the technique - The second part of each chapter deals with a selection of top examples highlighting the power of the specific technique to analyze the properties of semiconductors




Theory of Electron Transport in Semiconductors


Book Description

This book originated out of a desire to provide students with an instrument which might lead them from knowledge of elementary classical and quantum physics to moderntheoreticaltechniques for the analysisof electrontransport in semiconductors. The book is basically a textbook for students of physics, material science, and electronics. Rather than a monograph on detailed advanced research in a speci?c area, it intends to introduce the reader to the fascinating ?eld of electron dynamics in semiconductors, a ?eld that, through its applications to electronics, greatly contributed to the transformationof all our lives in the second half of the twentieth century, and continues to provide surprises and new challenges. The ?eld is so extensive that it has been necessary to leave aside many subjects, while others could be dealt with only in terms of their basic principles. The book is divided into ?ve major parts. Part I moves from a survey of the fundamentals of classical and quantum physics to a brief review of basic semiconductor physics. Its purpose is to establish a common platform of language and symbols, and to make the entire treatment, as far as pos- ble, self-contained. Parts II and III, respectively, develop transport theory in bulk semiconductors in semiclassical and quantum frames. Part IV is devoted to semiconductor structures, including devices and mesoscopic coherent s- tems. Finally, Part V develops the basic theoretical tools of transport theory within the modern nonequilibrium Green-function formulation, starting from an introduction to second-quantization formalism.




Advanced Physics of Electron Transport in Semiconductors and Nanostructures


Book Description

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 will be useful for students who intend to work in academia or the nano/ micro-electronics industry.Further topics covered include: the theory of energy bands in crystals, of second quantization and elementary excitations in solids, of the dielectric properties of semiconductors with an emphasis on dielectric screening and coupled interfacial modes, of electron scattering with phonons, plasmons, electrons and photons, of the derivation of transport equations in semiconductors and semiconductor nanostructures somewhat at the quantum level, but mainly at the semi-classical level. The text presents examples relevant to current research, thus not only about Si, but also about III-V compound semiconductors, nanowires, graphene and graphene nanoribbons. In particular, the text gives major emphasis to plane-wave methods applied to the electronic structure of solids, both DFT and empirical pseudopotentials, always paying attention to their effects on electronic transport and its numerical treatment. The core of the text is electronic transport, with ample discussions of the transport equations derived both in the quantum picture (the Liouville-von Neumann equation) and semi-classically (the Boltzmann transport equation, BTE). An advanced chapter, Chapter 18, is strictly related to the ‘tricky’ transition from the time-reversible Liouville-von Neumann equation to the time-irreversible Green’s functions, to the density-matrix formalism and, classically, to the Boltzmann transport equation. Finally, several methods for solving the BTE are also reviewed, including the method of moments, iterative methods, direct matrix inversion, Cellular Automata and Monte Carlo. Four appendices complete the text.




Semiconductor Nanostructures


Book Description

Reducing the size of a coherently grown semiconductor cluster in all three directions of space to a value below the de Broglie wavelength of a charge carrier leads to complete quantization of the energy levels, density of states, etc. Such “quantum dots” are more similar to giant atoms in a dielectric cage than to classical solids or semiconductors showing a dispersion of energy as a function of wavevector. Their electronic and optical properties depend strongly on their size and shape, i.e. on their geometry. By designing the geometry by controlling the growth of QDs, absolutely novel possibilities for material design leading to novel devices are opened. This multiauthor book written by world-wide recognized leaders of their particular fields and edited by the recipient of the Max-Born Award and Medal 2006 Professor Dieter Bimberg reports on the state of the art of the growing of quantum dots, the theory of self-organised growth, the theory of electronic and excitonic states, optical properties and transport in a variety of materials. It covers the subject from the early work beginning of the 1990s up to 2006. The topics addressed in the book are the focus of research in all leading semiconductor and optoelectronic device laboratories of the world.




Nanostructures


Book Description

Provides the theoretical background needed by physicists, engineers and students to simulate nano-devices, semiconductor quantum dots and molecular devices. It presents in a unified way the theoretical concepts, the more recent semi-empirical and ab initio methods, and their application to experiments. The topics include quantum confinement, dielectric and optical properties, non-radiative processes, defects and impurities, and quantum transport. This guidebook not only provides newcomers with an accessible overview (requiring only basic knowledge of quantum mechanics and solid-state physics) but also provides active researchers with practical simulation tools.




Transport in Nanostructures


Book Description

The advent of semiconductor structures whose characteristic dimensions are smaller than the mean free path of carriers has led to the development of novel devices, and advances in theoretical understanding of mesoscopic systems or nanostructures. This book has been thoroughly revised and provides a much-needed update on the very latest experimental research into mesoscopic devices and develops a detailed theoretical framework for understanding their behaviour. Beginning with the key observable phenomena in nanostructures, the authors describe quantum confined systems, transmission in nanostructures, quantum dots, and single electron phenomena. Separate chapters are devoted to interference in diffusive transport, temperature decay of fluctuations, and non-equilibrium transport and nanodevices. Throughout the book, the authors interweave experimental results with the appropriate theoretical formalism. The book will be of great interest to graduate students taking courses in mesoscopic physics or nanoelectronics, and researchers working on semiconductor nanostructures.




First-principles Calculations in Real-space Formalism


Book Description

With cutting-edge materials and minute electronic devices being produced by the latest nanoscale fabrication technology, it is essential for scientists and engineers to rely on first-principles (ab initio) calculation methods to fully understand the electronic configurations and transport properties of nanostructures. It is now imperative to introduce practical and tractable calculation methods that accurately describe the physics in nanostructures suspended between electrodes.This timely volume addresses novel methods for calculating electronic transport properties using real-space formalisms free from geometrical restrictions. The book comprises two parts: The first details the basic formalism of the real-space finite-difference method and its applications. This provides the theoretical foundation for the second part of the book, which presents the methods for calculating the properties of electronic transport through nanostructures sandwiched by semi-infinite electrodes.




Semiconductor Physics and Applications


Book Description

This textbook covers the basic physics of semiconductors and their applications to practical devices, with emphasis on the basic physical principles upon which these devices operate. Extensive use of figures is made to enhance the clarity of the presentation and to establish contact with the experimental side of the topic. Graduate students and lecturers in semiconductor physics, condensed matter physics, electromagnetic theory, and quantum mechanics will find this a useful textbook and reference work.