The course aims to 2nd year physics students. It introduces the basic concepts of solid state physics, the properties of semiconductors and the methods of semiconductor growth and processing. It explains the realization and operation of fundamental microelectronics and optoelectronics semiconductor devices (diode, transistor, laser diode, LED, photodiode), which constitute the underlying technology of the modern information and telecommunication systems.
Introduction to Semiconductors: Kinds of solid state materials, chemical bonds and electrical properties, families of semiconductors and their applications, energy bands and bandgap, the free electron and hole carriers, donor and acceptor dopants, n-type and p-type conductivity.
Physics of carriers: Fermi-Dirac statistics, Fermi level, effective densities of states, distribution and concentrations of carriers at thermal equilibrium, dependence on donor and acceptor concentrations and temperature, drift and diffusion currents, generation-recombination, absorption and emission of photons.
Techniques of semiconductor growth and device processing: Crystal growth and epitaxial growth, Czochralski methods for Si and GaAs, molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), metallorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE), device fabrication processes, photolithography, kinds of photoresists, fabrication of metallic patterns with the lift-off or etching methods.
Semiconductor devices and integrated circuits: Energy band diagrams of semiconductor devices, pn junction, built-in electric field, rectification behavior, operation of LED, photodiode and solar cell, fabrication and operation of laser diode, the FET transistors, fabrication and operation of GaAs MESFET, introduction to dimensions, speed and fabrication of integrated circuits.
The courses of the Computer Science Department are designated with the letters "CS" followed by three decimal digits. The first digit denotes the year of study during which students are expected to enroll in the course.
First Digit
Advised Year of Enrollment
1,2,3,4
First, Second, Third and Fourth year
5,6
Graduate courses
7,8,9
Specialized topics
Code
Computer Science Area
A1
Computer architecture and microelectronics
A2
Computer systems, parallel and high performance computing
A3
Computer security and distributed systems
A4
Computer networks, mobile computing, and telecommunications
B1
Algorithms and systems analysis
B2
Databases, information and knowledge management
B3
Software engineering and programming languages
B4
Artificial Intelligence and machine learning
C1
Signal processing and analysis
C2
Computer vision and robotics
C3
Computer graphics and human-computer interaction
C4
Βioinformatics, medical informatics, and computational neuroscience
The following pages contain tables (one for each course category) summarizing courses offered by the undergraduate studies program of the Computer Science Department at the University of Crete. Courses with code-names beginning with "MATH" or "PHYS" are taught by the Mathematics Department and Physics Department respectively at the University of Crete.