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Abstract

The electronic devices these days have become so small that the number of dopant atoms in the channel of a MOFET transistor, the number of oxide atoms in its gate dielectric, the number silicon- or metal crystals in nanocrystal Flash memory, the number of Nanowires in a flexible nanoNET transistor, the number of crystals in an poly-crystalline transistors, etc. are all finite, and countable. Moreover many devices like super-capacitors and organic solar cells depend on the randomness their morphology to enhance their performance. How should we think about electron transport through such random systems? The traditional approaches based on effective media theory, virtual crystal approximation, or Monte Carlo simulation are generally not very effective in describing such transport well. This short course introduces percolation theory to electrical engineers and device physicists as a powerful technique to handle such stochastically random transport problems of electronic devices.

Bio

Muhammad Alam Muhammad Ashraful Alam is a Professor of ECE at Purdue University where his research and teaching focus on physics, simulation, characterization and technology of classical and novel semiconductor devices including theory of oxide reliability, nanocomposite thin film transistors and nano-bio sensors. From 1995 to 2001, he was with Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ, as a Member of Technical Staff in the Silicon ULSI Research Department. From 2001 to 2003, he was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Agere Systems, Murray Hill, NJ. He joined Purdue University in 2004. Dr. Alam has published over 80 papers in international journals and has presented many invited and contributed talks at international conferences. He is an IEEE Fellow and received the 2006 IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award for contributions to device technology for communication systems.

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Researchers should cite this work as follows:

  • Muhammad A. Alam (2008), "Percolation Theory," https://nanohub.org/resources/5660.

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Lecture Number/Topic Online Lecture Video Lecture Notes Supplemental Material Suggested Exercises
Lecture 1: Percolation in Electronic Devices View Flash View Notes (pdf)
Even a casual review of modern electronics quickly convinces everyone that randomness of geometrical parameters must play a key role in understanding the transport properties. Despite the diversity...

Lecture 2: Thresholds, Islands, and Fractals View Flash View Notes (pdf)