EE 728 – GROWTH AND CHARACTERIZATION OF NANOMATERIALS

This is a very chill course from the grading point of view, so a lot of students in the courses will be just for the sake of grades. But if you are doing some work in fabrication and devices, then this will be an interesting course for you.

Professor when I took the course:

Prof. Apurba Laha in the spring semester of year 2014-2015

Prerequisites:

Nothing compulsory. Few concepts from EE207 related to k-space.

Course Content:

The description on ee website was followed pretty well.
A selection of topics from the following:

  • Basic Growth Concepts: growth modes; crystallization phenomena; defects
  • Fundamentals and analysis of epitaxy: liquid phase epitaxy; molecular beam epitaxy
  • Chemical vapor deposition; LPCVD examples (SiO2, Si3N4, Poly-Si, Silicon epitaxy); MOCVD, examples: dielectrics, epitaxy of III-V; PECVD; ALD.
  • Material Systems and Structures: GaAs and InP based materials : AlGaAs, GaInAs and InGaAsP; substrates, material purity, doping, ordering; heterostructures, interfaces; strained layer growth, critical thickness; Group III nitrides: AlGaInN and InGaAsN; Device structures : Detectors, Lasers, HEMTs.
  • Characterization of Nanoelectronic Materials: Photoluminescence; X-Ray diffraction; Transmission Electron Microscopy;Deep Level Transient spectroscopy; Atomic Force Microscopy; Secondary Electron Microscopy

Feedback on lectures:

Attendance was not compulsory. Lectures are a bit boring, the instructor spoke in a very monotonous way and there was minimum class interaction. Sometimes there might be a topic discussed more in class, but not in lecture slides. We had two lab sessions in the course, in which we were taken to various labs in the Nanoelectronics Building. The labs were not hands on, but just a demonstration. The concepts explained during those demonstrations were very interesting and effective.

Feedback on assignments and exams: 

Some of the lectures had a question or two in them which we were supposed to submit in the next class as assignment, these contributed to about 10% of the total score and there were 7-9 of them. The exams were easy and conceptual. If you attend the lectures it will be easy for you. Don’t rely entirely on lecture slides as sometimes, there can be questions from things discussed in class.

At the end of the course everyone was supposed to present a ppt on a given topic to TAs in groups of two, which accounted for about 20% of the total score. The topics were chosen by the students themselves from a several topics announced by sir.

Difficulty level: Fairly simple course. Attend regularly and take exams seriously, get at least an AB

Study Material and References:
All the lecture slides are uploaded on moodle by Sir, and they cover most of the syllabus for the course. Also, there are a lot of new terms in the slides, a little help from google will take you places.

Grading Stats: 

AA - 10

AB - 17

BB - 9

BC - 6

CC - 1

CD - 2

Reviewed by Shashank Gangrade(shashankgangrade@gmail.com)