Semiconductor Devices and Sensors

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Explain the principles of semiconductor sensors and give examples of their use in diagnostics
• Differentiate the semiconductor devices for different electronic, power, and photonic applications
• Develop critical and analytical skills to evaluate semiconductor devices
• Demonstrate a detailed understanding of the many and diverse aspects that relate to the operation and exploitation of semiconductor devices

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Demonstrate the basic skills in semiconductor device engineering for integrated electronic, power electronic, or photonic circuit applications
• Develop analytical approaches to understanding complex physical systems
• Understand the challenge in designing semiconductor sensors

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• The operation and applications of semiconductor physics for electronic, power electronic, optoelectronic, and ionic devices
• Device performance under different operating environments
• Properties of conductors, insulators, and semiconductors

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Design, model, and analyse a number of semiconductor device types
• Investigate the characteristics and performance of semiconductor devices
• Characterise the pH and ion selectivity of ISFETs

1. Conductors, Insulators and Semiconductors

• Crystalline and microcrystalline materials
• Conducting polymers
• Energy levels, bandgaps, electrons and holes
• Fields and potentials
• Drift and diffusion currents

2. p-n junctions

• Band diagrams
• Poisson’s equation
• The Diode equation
• Junction and depletion capacitance

3. Bipolar Junction Transistors

• Device structure and principle
• Fabrication process
• n-p-n and p-n-p BJT operation
• Gain and frequency response
• Switching characteristics
• Heterojunction bipolar transistors

4. MOSFETs

• Device structure and principle
• Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor and Metal-Semiconductor Interface
• Characteristics: Capacitance, Output Current and Threshold
• Enhancement and Depletion mode operation
• MOSFET Circuits
• Thin film transistors
• CMOS technology

5. Power electronic devices

• Power diodes
• Power MOSFET
• Thyristors and IGBTs

6. Optoelectronic devices

• Photodiodes
• LEDs and Laser Diodes

7. Semiconductor sensors

• Physical chemistry of the electrode-electrolyte interface
• pH sensing
• ISFETs
• Nanowires and nanoribbons
• The principles of potentiometric sensors
• Nernst equation
• Reference electrodes
• Applications in medicine

Teaching and learning is through lectures, tutorials and laboratories.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.