Optical and Electrical Properties of Nanoscale Materials

Alain Diebold · Tino Hofmann

Jan 2022 · Springer Series in Materials Science Book 318 · Springer Nature

About this ebook

This book covers the optical and electrical properties of nanoscale materials with an emphasis on how new and unique material properties result from the special nature of their electronic band structure. Beginning with a review of the optical and solid state physics needed for understanding optical and electrical properties, the book then introduces the electronic band structure of solids and discusses the effect of spin orbit coupling on the valence band, which is critical for understanding the optical properties of most nanoscale materials. Excitonic effects and excitons are also presented along with their effect on optical absorption.
2D materials, such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, are host to unique electrical properties resulting from the electronic band structure. This book devotes significant attention to the optical and electrical properties of 2D and topological materials with an emphasis on optical measurements, electrical characterization of carrier transport, and a discussion of the electronic band structures using a tight binding approach. This book succinctly compiles useful fundamental and practical information from one of the fastest growing research topics in materials science and is thus an essential compendium for both students and researchers in this rapidly moving field.

About the author

Alain Diebold is Professor Emeritus and an Empire Innovation Professor of Nanoscale Science in the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the State University of New York’s Polytechnic Institute. His primary research areas include nanoscale characterization and metrology as well as materials science at the nanoscale using optical and X-Ray measurements, electron microscopy, and semiconductor metrology. One part of this research involves extending these concepts to new materials and structures.

Dr. Diebold earned his BS in Chemistry from Indiana University-Purdue University, and holds a PhD in Chemistry from Purdue University where his thesis topic was Statistical Mechanics of Gas-Solid Surface Scattering. He is Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing. A frequent presenter at international conferences, Dr. Diebold has been named a Fellow of both the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) and the American Vacuum Society (AVS).

Tino Hofmann is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His expertise is in the area of complex materials’ characterization. His research work covers a broad range of experimental condensed matter physics and photonics with a strong emphasis on characterizing the anisotropic optical response of spatially-coherent nanostructured materials in the visible and THz spectral range. A part of his research involves the design and construction of optical instruments for the characterization of metamaterials and metasurfaces.
Dr. Hofmann received both his Dr. rer. nat. in Physics and his Diploma in Physics, from the University Leipzig, Germany. Dr. Hofmann is the recipient of a 2014 EU Marie Curie Fellowship and A VINNMER Fellow (Fellowship of the Swedish innovation agency VINNOVA).