Bernard Gil - Böcker

This book was motivated in large part by the tremendous interest shown in nitride semiconductors by the scientific community in recent years. The interest is due to the wide range of commercially viable industrial applications such as visible and ultraviolet optoelectronics. The aim of this book is to elucidate the physics of nitride-based materials and related devices, and to provide to graduate students and young researchers a rapid introduction to this burgeoning field. Chapters of tutorial style are of medium length, and have been commissioned from some of the very best experts on each topic, both from academia and from industry. All aspects arising from the dual challenges of achieving high-quality, single crystal material and engineering optoelectronic devices are addressed. In the first chapters, the reader will learn about the nitrides in the context of other semiconductors, and will be exposed to the methods used to grow these materials. The chapters which follow discuss the materials' performance from the point of view of electronic transport, optical and structural properties. Finally, an extensive review of device applications is provided in the area of modern transistors, ultraviolet detectors and light emitters.

Optoelectronics and electronics of the years to come are likely to change dramatically. Most of the outdoor lighting systems will be replaced by light-emitting diodes that operate in the whole visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Transistors operating at high frequency and with high power are under development and likely to hit the market very rapidly. Compact solid state lasers that operate in the near-ultraviolet range are going to be utilized for such widely used applications as read-write tasks in printers and CD drives. Ultraviolet detectors will be used at a wide scale for many applications, ranging from flame detectors to medical instruments. This book concerns itself with the questions why nitride semiconductors are so promising over such a wide range of applications, what the current issues are in the research laboratories, and what the prospects of new electronic devices are in the dawn of the twenty first century.

This book is dedicated to GaN and its alloys AlGaInN (III-V nitrides), semiconductors with intrinsic properties well suited for visible and UV light emission and electronic devices working at high temperature, high frequency, and harsh environments. There has been a rapid growth in the industrial activity relating to GaN, with GaN now ranking at the second position (after Si) among all semiconductors. This is mainly thanks to LEDs, but also to the emergence of lasers and high power and high frequency electronics. GaN-related research activities are also diversifying, ranging from advanced optical sources and single electron devices to physical, chemical, and biological sensors, optical detectors, and energy converters. All recent developments of nitrides and of their technology are gathered here in a single volume, with chapters written by world leaders in the field. This third book of the series edited by B. Gil is complementary to the preceding two, and is expected to offer a modern vision of nitrides and of their devices to a large audience of readers.

This book gives a survey of the current state of the art of a special class of nitrides semiconductors, Wurtzite Nitride and Oxide Semiconductors. Research in the area of nitrides semiconductors is still booming although some basic materials sciences issues were solved already about 20 years ago.