Quantum Processes in Semiconductors

This book sets out the fundamental quantum processes that are important in the physics and technology of semiconductors in a relatively informal style. The fifth edition includes new chapters that expand the coverage of semiconductor physics relevant to its accompanying technology. One of the problems encountered in high-power transistors is the excessive production of phonons, and the first new chapter examines the hot-phonon phenomenon and the lifetime of polar optical phonons in the nitrides. In the burgeoning field of spintronics a crucial parameter is the lifetime of a spin-polarised electron gas, and this is treated in detail in the second of the new chapters. The third new chapter moves from the…