Syllabus

Semiconductor in equilibrium: Equilibrium distribution of electrons and holes, qualitative description of dopant atoms and energy levels, equilibrium distribution of electrons and holes in extrinsic semiconductor, degenerate and non-degenerate semiconductors, statistics of donors and acceptors, probability function, compensated semiconductors, Fermi energy levels and its variation with doping concentration and temperature, relevance of Fermi energy.

Carrier transport phenomena: Carrier drift current density, mobile effects, conductivity, velocity saturation, carrier diffusion current density, total current density, graded impurity distribution and the Einstein's relation.

Non-equilibrium excess carriers in semiconductors: Carrier generation and recombination, characteristics of excess carriers, continuity equations, time-dependent diffusion equations, derivation of ambipolar transport equation, dielectric relaxation and its time constant, quasi-Fermi energy levels, surface effects.

The p-n junction: Basic structure of the p-n junction, zero applied bias, reverse applied bias, non-uniformly doped junctions, qualitative description of charge flow in a p-n junction, small-signal model of the p-n junction, generation-recombination currents, junction breakdown, charge storage and diode transients, tunnel diode.

Metal-semiconductor and semiconductor heterojunctions: The Schottky barrier diode, metal-semiconductor ohmic contacts, tunneling barrier, heterojunctions, heterojunction materials, equilibrium electrostatics, current-voltate characteristics.

Bipolar transistor: Basic principle of operation, minority carrier distribution, low-frequency common-base current gain, non-ideal effects, switching characteristics, the Schottky-clamped transistor, polysilicon emitter BJT, heterojunction bipolar transistors.

Special topics: Fundamentals of metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor, energy band diagrams, non-ideal effects in MOSFETs, radiation and hot-electron effects, junction FETs, optical devices