ELCT 871 - Advances in Semiconductor Devices

Instructor: Dr. Goutam Koley

Pre-requisites: 363, 574, 566 or working

knowledge of semiconductor
materials

In this course we will elucidate the key properties and figures of merit that make
wide-bandgap semiconductors ideal for applications in radars, solid-state lighting
and mobile communications. Though the major emphasis will be on GaN based
devices, state of the art Si devices and SiC devices will also be discussed to some
extent for completeness.

We will discuss how the

economic and technology
requirements for an application
are translated to the device and
material specifications. This will
be followed by discussions on the
approaches for the formulation of
a state of the art research program
for addressing the application
requirements. Fabrication and
characterization techniques for
specific devices for the above
applications will be used as an
illustration for the research and
product development
methodology. Students will also be exposed to art of research dissemination via
technical papers.

This course will be based on the current

gallium nitride research achievements at
USC Photonics and Microelectronics
Laboratory (PML) in addition to other
prevalent technological ideas. The
achievements at PML have helped it to
earn the recognition as a world leader in
deep ultraviolet (UV) optoelectronics
and high power electron device
technology.

Course assessments:
5 Homeworks (15%)
Midterm exam (25%)
Final exam (30%)
1 Individual project (30%)
 Course outline

1. Introduction
a. State of the art Si Technology
b. Comparison of elemental and compound semiconductors

2. Advantages of wide bandgap compound semiconductors

3. General properties of nitrides

a. Crystal structure, chemical, thermal, and mechanical properties of GaN
b. Band structure
c. Ternary and Quaternary Alloys: AlGaN, InGaN, AlInGaN
d. Polarization in nitrides
e. Strain-Energy-band engineering

4. Growth of Nitride materials

a. Bulk growth
b. Epitaxial growth
i. Substrate review
ii. MOCVD
iii. MBE
c. Strain and critical thickness problem
d. Dislocations in nitride films

5. Doping of III-nitrides
a. N-type doping
b. P-type doping
c. Polarization doping

6. Material characterization
a. Photoluminescence technique
b. X-Ray analysis
c. Surface morphology
d. DLTS
e. Hall, CV, Wafer conductivity mapping etc.

7. Metal contacts to nitride materials

a. Schottky contact formation
 b. Ohmic contact formation
c. Contacts characterization

8. Nitride based heterostructures and HFETs

a. Formation of 2D electron gas at AlGaN/GaN interface
b. Heterostructure Field-effect transistors: physics and applications
c. Instability of the channel charge in nitride HFETs

9. Light-Emitting diodes (LEDs) based on nitride materials

a. Multiple Quantum Well (MQW) LED design
b. Light emission mechanism
c. I-V characteristics and output power
d. Applications of visible and deep UV LEDs

10. Lasers based on nitride materials

11. SiC material properties and devices