Welcome to Lawrence J. Overzet's Web Pages

UNDER RECONSTRUCTION (slowly...)   Updated: 10/97
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS
ERIK JONSSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING & COMPUTER SCIENCE


EE 6320: SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE THEORY I:
Instructor: Dr. Lawrence J. Overzet
Telephone: UTD-2154; after 4 rings you get my message service
Office Hours: Are setup each semester, EC 2.930
Textbook: "Semiconductor Physical Electronics" Sheng S. Li, Plenum Press, 1993.
Useful references: "Modular Series on Solid State Devices volumes II, IV and VI" Pierret and Neudeck, Addison Wesley, 1987, 1989, and 1990.

This course will teach you about the fundamentals of semiconductor materials and devices. It will cover materials properties, charge carrier distributions and transport, semiconductor interfaces, optical processes, and Schottky barrier as well as pn junction diodes. It is a prerequisite to EE6321 which covers transistors in detail. The student finishing this course will be able to understand current literature on semiconductor materials properties and junctions.

Topical Course Outline: 

  1. Semiconductor Materials Properties: Lattices, Reciprocal Lattices, Brillouin Zones.
  2. Lattice Dynamics: Dispersion relations, Phonons, Density of States and Sound velocity.
  3. Equilibrium Charge Carrier Statistics: Distribution functions: Bose-Einstein, Maxwell-Boltzmann, Fermi-Dirac.
  4. Electron States in Semiconductors: Energy Bands, Kronig-Penney model, Nearly free electron model, Effective mass (for the conductivity and density of states function) Density of states function, 3-D energy band structures.
  5. Bulk material equilibrium: Electron and Hole densities, Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic conditions, Doping, Hall effect.
  6. Bulk material out of equilibrium: Recombination & Generation Processes, Excess carrier loss mechanisms, Direct and indirect recombination (Shockley-Read-Hall, Auger, Radiative), Charge neutrality equation, Haynes-Shockley experiment.
  7. Charge carrier transport: Boltzmann transport equation: Drift, Diffusion, Hall, Thomson, Nernst and other coefficients, Velocity overshoot (ballistic transport), velocity saturation.
  8. Optical properties of bulk material: Free-carrier absorption, Direct and indirect photon absorption, photoconductivity.
  9. Metal semiconductor contacts: Thermionic emission, Shottkey and ohmic contacts.
  10. P-N junction diodes: Potentials, particle movements and current flows, fields, junction width, capacitance, transients.
  11. Metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) structures: Energy vs position (E vs. X) diagrams, biasing, capacitance, threshold, steady state and transient behavior.
  12. Semiconductor Heterojunctions.
Homework: Homework will be assigned on Tuesday or Thursday and is due at the beginning of the following Tuesday. Each student must turn in individual work. All assigned work will be collected.

Course grading:
15% Weekly Assigned Homework
25% Exam I
25% Exam II
35% Final Exam
 
 

Main Page L.J.O. Vita  P.A. Lab  Presentations Course Info.   Teaching On-Site  Consulting 
University of Texas at Dallas,
P.O. Box 830688, EC33
Richardson, TX 75083-0688
Tel: (972)883-2154
Fax: (972)883-6839
email: overzet@utdallas.edu
 

Return to Department of Electrical Engineering Home Page