Material Science

EEE 4107
Amit Biswas
Adjunct Lecturer, Dept. of EEE
North Western University, Khulna

Slide Courtesy
Dr. Md. Sherajul Islam
Professor, KUET
Modern Theory of Solids
 Time-independent Schrödinger equation
Infinite Square-Well Potential

• The simplest such system is that of a particle trapped in a box with

infinitely hard walls that the particle cannot penetrate. This potential is
called an infinite square well and is given by

• Clearly the wave function must be zero where the potential is infinite.

• Where the potential is zero inside the box, the Schrödinger wave

equation becomes where .

• The general solution is .

  2 d 2
 2
 V ( x)  E
2m dx
 Finite Square-Well Potential
• The finite square-well potential is

• The Schrödinger equation outside the finite well in regions I and III is
or using

yields . The solution to this differential has exponentials of the

form eαx and e-αx. In the region x > L, we reject the positive
exponential and in the region x < L, we reject the negative
exponential.
 Finite Square-Well Solution
• Inside the square well, where the potential V is zero, the wave equation
becomes where

• Instead of a sinusoidal solution we have

• The boundary conditions require that

and the wave function must be smooth where the regions meet.

• Note that the

wave function is
nonzero outside
of the box.
 Electron Effective Mass
Ex

VACUUM
e­ F ext
a=
me
F ext

x
(a)
C R Y ST A L

F in t
F ext
a=
m e*

x
(b)
Fig. 4.19: (a) An external force Fext applied to an electron in
vacuum results in an acceleration avac = Fext / me . (b) An external
force Fext applied to an electron in a crystal results in an
acceleration acryst = Fext / me*. (Ex is the electric field.)
From Principles of Electronic Materials and Devices, Second Edition, S.O. Kasap (© McGraw-Hill, 2002)
http://Materials.Usask.Ca
Electron Effective Mass
E-K Diagram

E
 Calculation of Effective mass from E-K Diagram

What is the significance of E-K Diagram ??

 Density of states in an Energy Band
(a) (b ) (c) (d)

The density of states (DOS)
of a system describes the
number of available states per
E
E unit energy per unit volume

g (E )
E n erg y B a n d

Fig. 4.20: (a) This arbitrary atom in a single plane has 4 nearest neighbors. Isolated
from others, this system of 5 interacting atoms would have 5 split energy levels with
the widest energy separation; the interaction is between nearest neighbors. (b) There
are eight 4th-neighbors on this plane. In isolation from the rest, this 9-atom system
would have 9 split energy levels which are narrowly separated as the atoms are further
isolated. (c) In the crystal there are hundreds and thousands of distant neighbors so
the number of energy levels, which are narrowly split in energy, will be
correspondingly very large. Note: This is only an intuitive picture. (d) The density of
states, g(E) across an energy band.