The motivation for writing this book has grown out of a feeling that a novel, compiled description of more recent results within the MOS area is needed after the often-cited work from 1982, MOS (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) Physics and Technology, by E. H. Nicollian and J. R Brews (New York: John Wiley & Sons). Their work has been of extensive use within the MOS community. However, it only describes silicon dioxide structures and their approach follows a practical engineering path.

In the present text, I have included the most important consequences of using MOS insulators with higher dielectric constants, the so-called high-k oxides. Furthermore, since these insulators have given rise to new challenges from the point of view of materials physics, I have tried to start from a more physical basis. Still, my objective has been to write for a circle of readers including engineers, graduate students and researchers.

The book would not have come about without injections of inspiration from friends and colleagues, who have provided valuable discussion, help and up-to-date research during the preparation and writing of the text. Steve Hall and colleagues at the University of Liverpool, Ivona Mitrovic and Naser Sadeghi together with Henryk Przewlocki at the Institute of Electron Technology in Warsaw, and my former student, Bahman Raeissi, have filled in fuel and criticism for keeping up my typing. Specific and educational discussions on e-mail with Valery Afanas’ev, Douglas Buchanan, Jim Chelikowsky, Paul Hurley, Pat Lenahan, Winfried Mönch, Luca Selmi and Andre Stesmans are highly appreciated. Also, financial backing from the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2) at Chalmers is acknowledged together with the greatly valued assistance from colleagues of MC2 in keeping up my research during the writing period: Dag Winkler, Jan Stake, Peter Modh, Göran Petersson and Fredrik Henriksen.