This book originated out of a desire to provide students with an
instrument which might lead them from knowledge of elementary classical
and quantum physics to moderntheoreticaltechniques for the analysisof
electrontransport in semiconductors. The book is basically a textbook
for students of physics, material science, and electronics. Rather than
a monograph on detailed advanced research in a speci?c area, it intends
to introduce the reader to the fascinating ?eld of electron dynamics in
semiconductors, a ?eld that, through its applications to electronics,
greatly contributed to the transformationof all our lives in the second
half of the twentieth century, and continues to provide surprises and
new challenges. The ?eld is so extensive that it has been necessary to
leave aside many subjects, while others could be dealt with only in
terms of their basic principles. The book is divided into ?ve major
parts. Part I moves from a survey of the fundamentals of classical and
quantum physics to a brief review of basic semiconductor physics. Its
purpose is to establish a common platform of language and symbols, and
to make the entire treatment, as far as pos- ble, self-contained. Parts
II and III, respectively, develop transport theory in bulk
semiconductors in semiclassical and quantum frames. Part IV is devoted
to semiconductor structures, including devices and mesoscopic coherent
s- tems. Finally, Part V develops the basic theoretical tools of
transport theory within the modern nonequilibrium Green-function
formulation, starting from an introduction to second-quantization
formalism.