MEng Mechatronic Engineering with Industrial Experience / Course details

• The concept of band diagrams for the description of the electronic and optical properties of nanoelectronic materials.
• The concept of quantum mechanics to describe the influence of dimensionality on the electrical and optical properties of solids. Particle-wave duality, confinement and tunnelling. Comparison of 3D, 2D, 1D and 0D systems.
• Description of how low-dimensional structures can be integrated into devices and how functionality can be achieved by design. The impact of quantum mechanical effects on devices such as e.g. advanced CMOS devices or HEMTs.
• Devices that exploit tunnelling or resonant tunnelling effects for their operation such as Esaki diode or Flash memories.
• Description of how small feature sizes can be manufactured and which technologies are employed in that context.
• Graphene/2D-materials and their properties compared to conventional semiconductors. Description of how these materials can be employed for novel nanoelectronic devices.

The course unit aims to:  
(1) Introduce materials and devices used in state-of-the art computing and communication systems, such as advanced CMOS devices that operate at the scaling limit. 
(2) Explain nanoscale devices exploiting quantum mechanical effects due to e.g. low dimensionality. 
(3) Introduce graphene and 2D-materials for future electronics

ILO 1 - Understand the concept of band diagrams and employ them in a device context.

ILO 2 - Describe advanced CMOS devices and HEMTs.

ILO 3 - Describe the properties of graphene/2D-materials, their difference to conventional semiconductors and devices based on these.

ILO 4 - Apply gained knowledge to conceptually demanding topics.

ILO 5 - Explain how dimensionality affects the electrical and optical properties of solids.

ILO 6 - Bringing manufacturing techniques into context and apply them to derive process flows for device fabrication.

ILO 7 - Explain manufacturing techniques employed for nanoscale devices.

ILO 8 - Apply basic quantum mechanics to describe the effects of dimensionality on solids.

ILO 9 - Translate the physical properties of low-dimensional systems into a device context.

ILO 10 - Explain the principle of tunnelling and how it affects nanoelectronic devices.

·        Ability to work on conceptually demanding topics

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