Electrical, Optical & Magnetic Materials and Devices

This course is a part of xMinor in Materials for Electronic, Optical, and Magnetic Devices, a 4-course XSeries series from edX.

This course will explain the basis of the electrical, optical, and magnetic properties of materials including semiconductors, metals, organics and insulators, and will show how devices are built to take advantage of those properties. It is illustrated with a wide range of devices, placing a strong emphasis on new and emerging technologies. Applications presented include diodes, transistors, photodetectors, solar cells (photovoltaics), displays, light emitting diodes, lasers, optical fibers and optical communications, photonic devices, magnetic data storage, motors, transformers and spintronics.

Image attribution: Disk drive: KEURT Datenrettung, Lasers: US Navy Surface Warfare Center, Computer Chip: Jon Sullivan

What you'll learn

• Physics, calculus, and chemistry at the first year university level
• Familiarity with materials structure and bonding
• A background in solid state physics is helpful, but is not absolutely essential
• The origins of semiconductor properties
• Carrier action in semiconductors: drift, diffusion, recombination and generation
• The behavior of p-n junctions at equilibrium and under bias
• The derivation and application of the ideal diode equation, and how real diodes differ from ideal diodes
• Operating principles of bipolar junction transistors and MOSFETs
• The fundamental operating principles of photodevices
• LED and heterojunction laser materials selection and design
• Fundamentals of organic electronics and liquid crystal displays
• An overview of photonic systems
• Optical fibers: dispersion, losses, and design choices
• Fundamentals of magnetism
• The role anisotropy plays in the magnetic behavior of materials
• The operating principles of transformers and DC motors
• How data is stored on hard disks
• Principles of optical and magnetooptical storage