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As an EE, how would you explain concepts like a PN junction or field effect transistor without using statistical mechanics? (Ie, expected behaviour for ensembl
by jeffwass 10y ago
As an EE, how would you explain concepts like a PN junction or field effect transistor without using statistical mechanics? (Ie, expected behaviour for ensembles of huge numbers of particles).
- MichailP 10y agoThe models EE use are simplified, drift and diffusion current and electron and holes with their different mobilities and energy levels. Math apparatus used here, and strictly related to statistics, is limited to averaging, I would dare to say.
- smaddox 10y agoQuantum Monte Carlo simulation is pretty standard for modern semiconductor devices. Most of the effects of interest in highly scaled transistors, for example, cannot be properly accounted for otherwise. On the basic materials level, density functional theory is the current gold standard, and it's extremely statistics heavy. At the systems and architecture levels, you may be right, though.
- jeffwass 10y agoGreat. Those formulae are derived from statistical representation of huge number of particles, eg electrons modelled as a nearly-free gas of fermions obeying Fermi-Dirac statistics. And so too would anything making use of PN junctions, band gaps, especially when considering temperature dependence. I think you can agree now that your original observation of statistics as "glorified curve fitting" as a bit naive.