Defect Theory: An Armchair History

Abstract. This introductory chapter begins with a summary of the developments of the theory of defects in semiconductors in the past 50 years. This is followed by an overview of single-particle methods and today’s first-principles approach, rooted in density-functional theory. Much more detail about this theory and the approxi-mations it involves is found in subsequent chapters. The last section discusses the various contributions to this book.