ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of some basic concepts. It describes the crystal structure, which incorporates three important topics: the classification of crystals by symmetry, Miller indices, and the concept of the reciprocal space. The chapter introduces semiconductors and discusses their properties. It provides a summary of the important semiconductors used today. The chapter examines the electronic structure is naturally followed by an introduction of the concept of the effective mass. It explores the density of states calculation for the case of analytic band structures, and the concept of the electron mobility. The property of semiconductors that makes them most useful for constructing electronic devices is that their conductivity may easily be modified by introducing impurities into their crystal lattice. Semiconductors may be elemental materials, such as silicon and germanium; compound semiconductors, such as gallium arsenide and indium phosphide; or alloys, such as silicon germanium or aluminum gallium arsenide.
