The majority of the chapters in this volume represent a series of lectures. that were given at a workshop on quantum transport in ultrasmall electron devices, held at San Miniato, Italy, in March 1987. These have, of course, been extended and updated during the period that has elapsed since the workshop was held, and have been supplemented with additional chapters devoted to the tunneling process in semiconductor quantum-well structures. The aim of this work is to review and present the current understanding in nonequilibrium quantum transport appropriate to semiconductors. Gen erally, the field of interest can be categorized as that appropriate to inhomogeneous transport in strong applied fields. These fields are most likely to be strongly varying in both space and time. Most of the literature on quantum transport in semiconductors (or in metallic systems, for that matter) is restricted to the equilibrium approach, in which spectral densities are maintained as semiclassical energy conserving delta functions, or perhaps incorporating some form of collision broadening through a Lorentzian shape, and the distribution functions are kept in the equilibrium Fermi-Dirac form. The most familiar field of nonequilibrium transport, at least for the semiconductor world, is that of hot carriers in semiconductors.

Zusammenfassung
Reviews modern applications and aspects - including electron-photon-of non-equilibrium Green's functions for quantum transport in semiconductors.

Inhalt

1. Principles of Quantum Transport.- 2. The Kubo Formula and Linear Response.- 3. Path Integral Method: Use of Feynman Path Integrals in Quantum Transport Theory.- 4. Quantum Transport in Solids: The Density Matrix.- 5. The Quantum Hall and Fractional Quantum Hall Effects.- 6. Green's Function Methods: Quantum Boltzmann Equation for Linear Transport.- 7. Green's Function Methods: Nonequilibrium, High-Field Transport.- 8. Numerical Techniques for Quantum Transport and Their Inclusion in Device Modeling.- 9. Wave Packet Studies of Tunneling through Time-Modulated Semiconductor Heterostructures.- 10. Tunneling Times in Quantum Mechanical Tunneling.- 11. Wigner Function Modeling of the Resonant Tunneling Diode.