Characterization Techniques for Semiconductor Materials and Device, 5 credits
Karakteriseringstekniker för halvledarmaterial och halvledarkomponenter
Course information
Language of instruction: English
Course period: September – November 2025
Campus teaching or online teaching: Lectures on campus
Recommended prerequisites
MSc education or equivalent in physics, engineering physics, materials science and engineering, material chemistry, electrical engineering, electronics.
Learning outcomes
After completing the course, the students should be able to:
- choose applicable characterization techniques for a particular task concerning semiconductor materials and devices,
- understand basic measurement principles and instrument operations,
- interpret measurement results obtained from both material and device characterization methods,
- design a set of characterization techniques for interested materials/devices from both material and device characterization perspectives,
- accuracy/precision analysis of measurement results,
- recommend further measurement methods if applicable.
Learning outcomes for doctoral degree
Several research disciplines (“program” in Swedish) at the Faculty of Science and Technology conduct cutting-edge research that utilizes semiconductor materials for various devices. The rapid development of energy and electronic technologies, such as neuromorphic computing, quantum computing, batteries, solar cells, etc., places increasingly high demands on semiconductor materials. The proposed course with its outlined contents will best serve the doctoral students in these disciplines to advance towards their doctorate degree.
The characterization techniques included in this course have been carefully selected for their relevance to the structural and electrical analysis of semiconductor materials and devices. Rather than treating these techniques as standalone topics, they will be presented as interconnected elements within a comprehensive framework, from crystal structure and atomic composition, to doping, resistivity, and junction characteristics. Hence, the course aims to provide the students with a toolbox of commonly used structural and electrical characterization techniques. The course will not dive deeply into each technique individually, but emphasize the correlations among them by also covering sufficient basic knowledge, in order to enable the students to organically combine different technologies for specific tasks in their research.
Each lecture of the course will cover one specific technique, encompassing basic theories and practicalities that are essential for data/result analysis and parameter extraction. The teaching team comprising experts in the relevant fields will serve as a consulting network that students can access even after the course.
Course contents
The course will cover the most commonly used structural and electrical characterization techniques for semiconductor materials and devices. Structural characterization methods include X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning/Transmission Electron Microscopy (SEM/TEM), and Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS). Electrical characterization techniques will cover resistivity and Hall effects, current-voltage and capacitance-voltage measurements for p-n and metal-semiconductor junctions.
Instruction
6 lectures each for 3 hours.
3 labs each for 2 hours.
Assessment
Comprising three complementary assessment parts:
- Participation in all lectures
- Reports for all labs
- Written exam
Course examiner
Chenyu Wen, chenyu.wen@angstrom.uu.se
Department with main responsibility
Department of Electrical Engineering
Contact person
Chenyu Wen, chenyu.wen@angstrom.uu.se
Application
Submit the application: Chenyu Wen, chenyu.wen@angstrom.uu.se
Submit the application not later than: Aug. 20, 2025