Semiconductordevicesarenowadayscommonplaceineveryhousehold. Inthe late1940stheinventionofthetransistorwasthestartofarapiddevelopment towards ever faster and smaller electronic components. Complex systems are built with these components. The main driver of this development was the economical bene?t from packing more and more wiring, transistors and fu- tionality on a single chip. Now every human is left with about 100 million transistors (on average). Semiconductor devices have also enabled econo- cally reasonable ?ber-based optical communication, optical storage and hi- frequency ampli?cation and have only recently revolutionized photography, display technology and lighting. Along with these tremendous technological developments, semiconductors have changed the way we work, communicate, entertain and think. The technological sophistication of semiconductor - terials and devices is progressing continuously with a large worldwide e?ort in human and monetary capital, partly evolutionary,partly revolutionary embracing the possibilities of nanotechnology. For students, semiconductors o?er a rich, diverse and exciting ?eld with a great tradition and a bright future. This book is based on the two semester semiconductor physics course taught at Universit¨ at Leipzig. The material gives the students an overview of the subject as a whole and brings them to the point where they can specialize and enter supervised laboratory research. For the interested reader some - ditional topics are included in the book that are taught in subsequent, more specialized courses. The ?rst semester contains the fundamentals of semiconductor physics (Part I – Chaps. 1–17).
