| A vague discomfort at the thought of the chemical potential is still characteristic of a physics education. This intellectual gap is due to the obscurity of the writings of J. Willard Gibbs who discovered and understood the matter 100 years ago.
| C. Kittel; Preface to his book: Introduction to Solid State Physics

# The Chemical Potential

| This module is registered in the "basic" part of the Semiconductor course, beause the chemical potential belongs to basic thermodynamics. However, people with a mostly physics background (like me) may often have learned exciting things like Bose-Einstein condensations and the Liouville theorem in their thermodynamics courses, but not overly much about chemical potentials and, most importantly, chemical equilibrium .
| If you want to refresh your memory, the following link will take you to the hyperscript "Defects in Crystals" which contains a detailed discussion of the chemical potential in its "Advanced" part.

With frame

2.1.1 Essentials of the Free Electron Gas

2.2.4 Simple Junctions and Devices

Alternative Derivation of the Einstein Relation

© H. Föll (Semiconductors - Script)