Read more
Everyone is familiar with the amazing performance of a modern smartphone, powered by a billion-plus nanotransistors, each having an active region that is barely a few hundred atoms in length.
These lecture notes are about a less appreciated by-product of the microelectronics revolution, namely the deeper understanding of current flow, and device operation that it has enabled, which forms the basis for a new approach to transport problems.
The book assumes very little background beyond linear algebra and differential equations, and is intended to be accessible to anyone in any branch of science or engineering.
Readers are encouraged to visit the website http://nanohub.org/groups/lnebook to access revisions, corrections, video lectures, tutorials, quizzes and also to join a Q&A forum based on questions from readers.
List of contents
The Bottom-Up Approach; Introductory Concepts: Why Electrons Flow; The Elastic Resistor; The New Ohm's Law; Where is the Resistance?; Transverse Modes; Drude Formula; Kubo Formula; How Realistic is an Elastic Resistor?; Semiclassical & Quantum Transport: The Nanotransistor; Semiclassical Transport and the SCF Method; Resistance and Uncertainty; Quantum Transport: Schrodinger to NEGF; Resonant Tunneling and Anderson Localization; Coulomb Blockade and Mott Transition; Spin Blockade; Hall Effect / QHE; Beyond Voltages and Currents: Thermoelectricity; Heat Flow; Spin Flow; Spin Transistor; Entropy Flow And Maxwell's Demon; Epilogue: Physics in a Grain of Sand; Solutions to Exercises; Additional Problems.
