The proceedings reflect the Twelfth International Conference on Defects in Insulating Materials, covering topics on point defects and extended defects including theory and computer simulation in various insulating materials, as well as applications in laser physics, imaging, data storage and radioactive waste disposal.

This book constitutes a comprehensive international forum on defect-related phenomena in wide-gap materials, crystalline or otherwise. Materials as diverse as SiO2, group-III nitride compounds, diamond, alkali halides, refractory oxides, and polymers are covered, and the "defects" considered include intrinsic point imperfections, dislocations, accidental impurities, intentional dopants, imperfect surfaces, nanocrystals in host matrices, and bonding defects in glasses. Important unifying similarities of the phenomena are identified and investigative methods are presented which can be applied, almost across-the-board, to materials which share a wide transparency, deep traps, extensive stored energy in electron-hole pairs, and a low conduction-electron density.