Courses Catalogue

Syllabus of the course: Electronic Thin Film and Nanostructure Science


In this web page we provide the syllabus of the course Electronic Thin Film and Nanostructure Science, offered by the Department of Physics.
The list of the courses offered during the current accademic year is available here.
The list of all courses offered by the Department of Physics is available here.

CodeΦ-677
TypeB
ECTS5
Hours4
SemesterWinter
InstructorA. Georgakilas
ProgramTuesday, 09:00-11:00, 1st floor seminar room
Friday, 14:00-16:00, 1st floor seminar room
Web page
Goal of the courseThis is a post-graduate level course for students interested in the technologies of thin films and nanomaterials for electronic and photonic applications. It provides the background knowledge for understanding the growth, processing and stability of nanomaterials at the atomic level. This will allow a comprehensive engineering of their electrical and optical properties.
SyllabusCrystal structure and defects:
Crystalline and non-crystalline materials, crystal systems, Bravais lattices, crystal directions and planes, surface structure and reconstructions, main crystal structures, point, linear and planar crystal defects, types of dislocations, dislocation energy.

Surface energy:
Interatomic potential and binding energy, latent heat of sublimation and surface energy, surface tension, magnitudes of surface energies, measurement methods.
Diffusion in solids:
Frequency of atomic jumps and diffusional flux, chemical potential and driving force, 1st and 2nd Fick’s Law, a solution for one-dimensional diffusion, diffusion coefficient values and their dependencies, surface diffusion.

Stress:
Elastic stress-strain relationship, elastic energy, biaxial stress in thin films, chemical potential in a stressed solid, diffusional creep.

Surface kinetic processes and epitaxial growth:
Desorption and diffusion, vapor pressure and ripening of clusters, coalescence of clusters, nucleation of two-dimensional clusters, homoepitaxy, growth modes, step-flow growth, methods of epitaxial growth, molecular beam epitaxy of GaAs and GaN.

Heteroepitaxy and heterostructures-nanostructures:
Lattice constants and bandgaps of semiconductors, lattice misfit, elastic energy in heteroepitaxial layers, strain relaxation by the formation of three-dimensional clusters or misfit dislocations, critical thickness and ways of formation of misfit dislocations, threading dislocations, tetragonal distortion, heterostructures for advanced devices, quantum well and quantum dots.

Introduction to stability and phase changes :
Solid state amorphization, crystallization and epitaxy, interdiffusion, thin film reactions, electromigration.
Bibliography«Electronic Thin Film Science: for electrical engineers and materials scientists», K.-N. Tu, J. W. Mayer and L. C. Feldman, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1992
«Electronic Materials Science», J.W. Mayers, S.S. Lau, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1990
«Nitride Semiconductors, Handbook on Materials and Devices» (Wiley-VCH, Berlin, 2003), edited by P. Ruterana, M. Albrecht and J. Neugebauer,
Chapter 3: “Plasma Assisted Molecular Beam Epitaxy of GaN”, by A. Georgakilas, H.M. Ng and Ph. Komninou

University of Crete - Department of Physics  - Voutes University Campus - GR-70013 Heraklion, Greece
phone: +30 2810 394300 - email: chair@physics.uoc.gr