Computational Seminar on Semiconductor Device Modeling

Modeling the electronic structure of semiconductor devices

Dr. Mike Stopa 

Director of National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network Computation Project 

Center for Nanoscale Systems 

Harvard University

Time: 10 am, Thursday November 10, 2011

Place: Allen 101 

Modeling of the electronic structure of nano-scale semiconductor devices is a both conceptually and practically difficult task that is invaluable for experimentalists and device engineers. The complexity and variety of semiconductor devices, in their morphology or material composition or in the specific features that are under investigation, generally inhibit the development of any "all purpose code" that simulates all properties of all devices. The SETE code, which I will discuss in this talk, was initially developed to model GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructure-based two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) devices, but has since been applied to other systems. Modification to other systems typically means that only the most fundamental features of the SETE code are transferable. A brief list of some of the systems, materials and properties that have been modeled by SETE and its variants is:

·       Semiconductor nanowires;

·       Configuration interaction calculation in quantum dots;

·       Magnetic terraces (compressible and incompressible regions) in the 2DEG in the quantum Hall regime;

·       Complicated band structure using k dot p (Luttinger Hamiltonian) formalism;

·       Förster transfer process between semiconductor nanoparticles;

·       Strain effect on electronic structure;

·       Molecular systems adjacent to (adsorbed on) metal surfaces.

I will, in this talk, give a general overview of density functional calculations for semiconductor devices, emphasizing the core elements – mainly the Poisson solver – and the simplest implementation (using the Thomas-Fermi approximation in a 2DEG). I will discuss further the kinds of modifications that are necessary to implement some of the above features. Some of the talk will relate to work that is currently in progress and for which feedback will be greatly appreciated.

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Blanka Magyari-Kope

Senior Research Associate

Department of Electrical Engineering

Allen 105

Tel: 650 725 5725

Url: http://www.stanford.edu/~blankamk/