I did not expect that I would ever say this but sometimes the lectures nowadays are a little too little physical. On Tuesday we had another lecture about transistors. A short adventure report:
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| Simulation of a two-dimensional electric field in a transistor. |
Instead of the usual one-dimensional electric field this time we assume the channel (important thing in a transistor!) to be influenced by a two-dimensional electric field. This means: 2D Poisson equation. So our professor writes it on the board and the happy little physicist starts trying to remeber how you solve this. Experimental physics method of mathematically ruthless integration? Theoretical physics method of crazy bad-ass algebra with several variable substitutions and sh*t? More important: Logical evaluation first! *spared because of danger of boredom for not-physicists*
First comment on the equation by the professor: "Now we are not really good at solving equations like this." My thought: Well I am certainly not but you should be? So you solve and I will marvel. :) Next he says something about a temperature flow equivalent to electron movement ... Ok very intuitive, now solve. :)
Nope, still not. He tells some more descriptive stories that I do not quite remember as my fellow German zombie-state (his own term; adding coffee to "zombie" results in "robot" btw) physicist awakens from his lecture-following sub-processes and whispers "Ah, theo 2" (meaning theoretical physics 2 course in Germany) and I just answer "Theo 3 for us." Meanwhile, our professor talks about linear superpositions of potentials and I start to doubt that he will solve the equation. He shows some graphics from a numerical simulation programme and I am certain that he will not solve it. He just gives the solution on a slide.
It looks utterly ugly and I remember the times when I was glad if we just got the solution. That was short before with a heavy heart I decided to leave Heidelberg. To do something more engineery. ;)
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