EE 421—Fundamentals of Semiconductor Devices 1

This course focuses on the fundamental physics determining the electronic and optical properties of solid-state materials, and in particular, various semiconductor materials. The course begins with a review of fundamental concepts in classical physics, a review of electromagnetism, followed by an introduction to quantum mechanics. The course then delves into the fundamentals of solid-state physics, including crystal structures, the concept of reciprocal space, the band theory of crystals and methods for band structure calculation, the concept of holes and effective mass, phonons and electron-phonon interactions, etc. Following these discussions, the rest of the course focuses on the electron transport properties and optical properties of various important semiconductor materials, including silicon and germanium, III-V semiconductors, as well as graphene and other two-dimensional semiconductors. This course is dual listed with EE 563.