BANDGAP AND INTERFACE ENGINEERING FOR ADVANCED ELECTRONIC AND PHOTONIC DEVICES

Bandgap engineering is a powerful technique for the design of new semiconductor materials and devices. Heterojunctions and modem growth techniques, such as molecular beam epitaxy, allow band diagrams with nearly arbitrary and continuous bandgap variations to be made. The transport properties of electrons and holes can be tuned independently and continuously for a given application. A new generation of devices with unique capabilities, ranging from solid-state photomultipliers to resonant-tunneling transistors, is emerging from this approach. Finally, the tunability of band discontinuities via doping interface dipoles is discussed.