Semiconductor Physics

Academic year 2025/2026
Lecturer Fabio Beltram, Andrea Guerrini, Miriam Serena Vitiello

Integrative teaching

Andrea Guerrini

Examination procedure

<p>Oral examination</p>

Prerequisites

Band structure of crystalline solids

The course is suitable for fourth and fifth year students

Syllabus

A. Bulk Semiconductors

Electronic states and energy bands in bulk semiconductors: single-band approximation, envelope function approximation, effective mass approximation. Multiband envelope function approximation: Luttinger-Kohn hamiltonian. Carrier statistics at equilibrium. Electron transport, semiclassical dynamics. Bloch oscillator. Zener effect. Optical properties: interband transitions and joint density of states. Electron mobility: charged impurity scattering, electron-phonon interaction, temperature dependence.


B. Heterostructures and 2D materials

Semiconductor heterostructures: growth and fabrication, band alignment. Electronic states and carrier statistics in superlattices and quantum wells. Electron transport in superlattices and multiple quantum wells (intra- and inter-band). Resonant tunneling diodes. Two-dimensional electron gases: modulation doping and electron mobiity, graphene and other 2D materials. Quantum Hall effects. Optical properties of heterostructures: intraband and interband matrix elements. Quantum-well lasers, quantum-cascade lasers.

Bibliographical references

J.M. Ziman, Theory of solids, Cambridge University Press

P.Y. Yu and M. Cardona, Fundamentals of Semiconductors, Springer

S. Datta, Quantum Phenomena. Addison Wesley

J. Faist, Quantum Cascade Lasers, Oxford University Press