Materials and Physical Properties of High-K Oxide Films -- Device Principles of High-K Dielectrics -- Thermodynamics of Oxide Systems Relevant to Alternative Gate Dielectrics -- Electronic Structure and Chemical Bonding in High-k Transition Metal and Lanthanide Series Rare Earth Alternative Gate Dielectrics: Applications to Direct Tunneling and Defects at Dielectric Interfaces -- Atomic Structure, Interfaces and Defects of High Dielectric Constant Gate Oxides -- Dielectric Properties of Simple and Complex Oxides from First Principles -- IVb Transition Metal Oxides and Silicates: An Ab Initio Study -- The Interface Phase and Dielectric Physics for Crystalline Oxides on Semiconductors -- Interfacial Properties of Epitaxial Oxide/Semiconductor Systems -- Functional Structures -- Mechanistic Studies of Dielectric Growth on Silicon -- Methodology for Development of High-? Stacked Gate Dielectrics on III–V Semiconductors.This book presents materials fundamentals of novel gate dielectrics that are being introduced into semiconductor manufacturing to ensure the continuous scalling of the CMOS devices. This is a very fast evolving field of research so we choose to focus on the basic understanding of the structure, thermodunamics, and electronic properties of these materials that determine their performance in device applications. Most of these materials are transition metal oxides. Ironically, the d-orbitals responsible for the high dielectric constant cause sever integration difficulties thus intrinsically limiting high-k dielectrics. Though new in the electronics industry many of these materials are wel known in the field of ceramics, and we describe this unique connection. The complexity of the structure-property relations in TM oxides makes the use of the state of the art first-principles calculations necessary. Several chapters give a detailed description of the modern theory of polarization, and heterojunction band discontinuity within the framework of the density functional theory. Experimental methods include oxide melt solution calorimetry and differential scanning calorimetry, Raman scattering and other optical characterization techniques, transmission electron microscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Many of the problems encounterd in the world of CMOS are also relvant for other semiconductors such as GaAs. A comprehensive review of recent developments in this field is thus also given. The book should be of interest to those actively engaged in the gate dielectric research, and to graduate students in Materials Science, Materials Physics, Materials Chemistry, and Electrical Engineering. .