Electronic Conduction

John P. Xanthakis obtained his PhD from the Electrical Engineering Department of Imperial College, University of London in 1980. After a period as a post-doctoral fellow at the Mathematics Department of Imperial College he obtained a lectureship at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 1985. In 1992 - 93 he spent the academic year at Imperial College on sabbatical leave. He was promoted to Professor at NTUA in 1999. He has 50+ papers in peer-reviewed journals and numerous presentations in International Conferences. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and a regular reviewer in many top journals. His main interest is in nanoelectronics, in particular vacuum nanoelectronics.

I. Prerequisites: Quantum Mechanics and The Electronic States in Solids. 1. Quantum Mechanics. 1.1. The two-slit experiment. 1.2. The Schroedinger Equation. 1.3. Particle in a Rectangular Quantum Box. 1.4. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. 1.5. The Pauli Principle and the Fermi Dirac Probability. 1.6. The Hydrogen atom and the atoms of the Periodic Table. 1.7. Barrier Penetration and Tunneling. 1.8. Probability Current Density. 2. Electron States in Solids. 2.1. Qualitative Description of Energy Bands in Solids. 2.2. The k-space and Bloch’s Theorem. 2.3. The LCAO method. 2.4. Quick Revision of the concept of a Hole and Doping. 2.5. Velocity of electrons in Solids. 2.6. The concept of Effective Mass. 2.7. Concentration of Carriers in Semiconductors and Metals. 2.8. The Effective Mass Equation. II. Theory Of Conduction. 3. Simple Classical Theory of Conduction. 3.1. External voltages and Fermi levels. 3.2. Collisions and drift mobility. 3.3. Mechanisms of scattering. 3.4. Recombination of carriers. 3.5 Diffusion Current. 3.6. Continuity Equations. 3.7. The ideal PN junction at equilibrium. 3.8. The ideal PN junction under bias. 3.9. The non-ideal PN junction. 3.10. The Metal-Semiconductor or Schottky junction. 4. Advanced Classical Theory of conduction. 4.1. The need for a better classical theory of conduction. 4.2. The Boltzman equation. 4.3. Solution of the Boltzman equation by the relaxation time approximation. 4.4. Application of an Electric Field. 4.5. Diffusion Currents. 4.6. General Expression for the Current Density. 4.7. The Seebeck-Thermoelectric Effect. 4.8. Saturation of drift velocity. 4.9. The Gunn Effect and velocity overshoot. 4.10. The classical Hall Effect. Chapter 5. The Quantum Theory of Conduction. 5.1. Critique of the Boltzmann Equation and Regimes of conduction. 5.2. Electronic Structure of Low-dimensional Systems. 5.3. The Landauer Formalism. 5.4. The Effective Mass Equation for Heterostructures. 5.5. Transmission Matrices and Airy Function. 5.6. The Resonant Tunneling Diode RTD. III. Devices. Chapter 6: Field Emission and Vacuum Devices. 6.1. Introduction. 6.2. The One-dimensional WKB Equation. 6.3. Field Emission from Planar Surfaces. 6.4. The Three-dimensional WKB Problem. 6.5. Field Emission from Curved Surfaces. 6.6. The Vacuum Transistor. Chapter 7. The MOSFET. 7.1. Basic Operation. 7.2. Simple Classical Theory of the MOSFET. 7.3. Advanced Classical Theory of the MOSFET. 7.4. Quantum Theory of the MOSFET. 7.5. Time-Dependent Performance and Moores’ law. 7.6. Non-Planar Si MOSFETs and the FinFET. Chapter 8. Post –Si FETs. 8.1. Introduction. 8.2. Simple Theory of the HEMT or MODFET. 8.3. Advanced theory of the HEMT. 8.4. The III-V MOSFET. 8.5. The Carbon Nanotube FET, CNTFET. Appendices. A1. Angular Momentum and Spin. A2. Lattice Vibrations. A3. Calculation of Impurity States in Semiconductors. A4. Direct and Indirect Gap Semiconductors and Optical Properties.