A bird's eye view of semiconductor materials and heterostructural devices

Semiconductor materials and devices play critical roles in our modern information society, with products permeating almost every corner of our life. This article briefly reviews the history of semiconductor research, introduces semiconductor materials and related applications, describes the principles and applications of semiconductor heterostructural devices, and finally presents the current status and future development of semiconductor spintronics and low-dimensional narrow bandgap semiconductor nanostructures.