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This book sets out the fundamental quantum processes that are important in the physics and technology of semiconductors in a relatively informal style that graduate students will find very attractive. The fifth edition includes new chapters that expand the coverage of semiconductor physics relevant to its accompanying technology. One of the problems encountered in high-power transistors is the excessive production of phonons and the first new chapter examines the hot-phonon phenomenon and the lifetime of polar optical phonons in the nitrides. In the burgeoning field of spintronics a crucial parameter is the lifetime of a spin-polarised electron gas, and this is treated in detail in the second of the new chapters. The third new chapter moves from the treatment of bulk properties to the unavoidable effects of the spatial limitation of the semiconductor, and to the influence of surface states and the pinning of the Fermi level.
As with previous editions the text restricts its attention to bulk semiconductors. The account progresses from quantum processes describable by density matrices, through the semi-classical Boltzmann equation and its solutions, to the drift-diffusion description of space-charge waves, the latter appearing in the contexts of negative differential resistance, acoustoelectric and recombination instabilities. Besides being a useful reference for workers in the field, this book will be a valuable text for graduate courses.
List of contents
- 1: Band structure of semiconductors
- 2: Energy levels
- 3: Lattice scattering
- 4: Impurity scattering
- 5: Radiative transitions
- 6: Non-radiative processes
- 7: Quantum processes in a magnetic field
- 8: Scattering in a degenerate gas
- 9: Dynamic screening
- 10: Phonon processes
- 11: Quantum transport
- 12: Semiclassical transport
- 13: Space-charge waves
- 14: Hot phonons
- 15: Spin processes
- 16: Surfaces and interfaces
About the author
B. K. Ridley FRS, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Essex
Summary
This book sets out the fundamental quantum processes that are important in the physics and technology of semiconductors. The fifth edition includes three new chapters that expand the coverage of semiconductor physics relevant to its accompanying technology.
Additional text
This new edition covers the material included in the earlier editions, supplemented by sections on mixed and entangled quantum states treated by a single particle density matrix method; more on the use of the Boltzmann equation and on transport phenomena; and further treatment of hot-electron phenomena. The main aim of the book is to interpret theoretical quantum phenomena for graduate experimental solid-state physicists.
