Physical Foundations of Solid-State Devices

and photonics to get a good understanding of the physical foundations of modern semiconductor

devices. Questions that technical personnel may ask are: How are electrons propagating in the

periodic potential of a crystal lattice? What are the foundations of semiconductor

heterostructure devices? How does quantum mechanics relate to semiconductor

heterostructures? This book tries to answer questions such as these.

The book provides a basis for the understanding of modern semiconductor devices that have

dimensions in the nanometer range, that is, comparable to the electron de Broglie wavelength.

For such small spatial dimensions, classical physics no longer gives a full description of physical

processes. The inclusion of quantum mechanical principles becomes mandatory and provides a

useful description of common physical processes in electronic, optoelectronic, and photonic

devices.

Chapters 1 to 11 teach the quantum‐mechanical principles, including the postulates of quantum

mechanics, operators, the uncertainty principle, the Schrödinger equation, non‐periodic and

periodic potentials, quantum wells, and perturbation theory. Chapters 12 to 20 apply these

principles to semiconductor devices and discuss the density of states, semiconductor statistics,

carrier concentrations, doping, tunneling, and aspects of heterostructure devices.

The 2022 edition is a complete revision of the 2015 edition and also updates the formatting to

make it easily viewable with electronic display devices.