2.2 Heating Phenomena

In the age of the industrial revolution where the machines ran with water vapor, fundamental theorems of thermodynamics have been established to deepen the knowledge and to pursue the development of new more sophisticated machines. Research progress in electronics and material science nowadays have already enhanced knowledge in the micro and nanoelectronic regime but still, fundamental knowledge is missing for certain problems where material interactions occur, especially if coupled heating phenomena appear with chemical material interactions or volume expansions where also material phases may change. This section starts with the fundamental postulates in thermodynamics which are followed by the most important phenomena required to accurately describe modern semiconductor devices.