Volume 1 of Point Defects in Solids has as its major emphasis defects in ionic solids. Volume 2 now extends this emphasis to semiconductors. The first four chapters treat in some detail the creation, kinetic behavior, inter actions, and physical properties of both simple and composite defects in a variety of semiconducting systems. Also included, as in Vol. 1, are chapters on special topics, namely phonon-defect interactions and defects in organic crystals. Defect behavior in semiconductors has been a subject of considerable interest since the discovery some twenty-five years ago that fast neutron irradiation profoundly affected the electrical characteristics of germanium and silicon. Present-day interest has been stimulated by such semiconductor applications as solar cell power plants for space stations and satellites and semiconductor particle and y-ray detectors, since in both radiation damage can cause serious deterioration. Of even greater practical concern is the need to understand particle damage in order to capitalize upon the develop ing technique of ion implantation as a means of device fabrication. Although the periodic international conferences on radiation effects in semiconductors have served the valuable function of summarizing the extensive work being done in this field, these proceedings are much too detailed and lack the background discussion needed to make them useful to the novice.

From its early beginning before the war, the field of semiconductors has developped as a classical example where the standard approximations of 'band theory' can be safely used to study its interesting electronic properties. Thus in these covalent crystals, the electronic structure is only weakly coupled with the atomic vibrations; one-electron Bloch functions can be used and their energy bands can be accurately computed in the neighborhood of the energy gap between the valence and conduction bands; nand p doping can be obtained by introducing substitutional impurities which only introduce shallow donors and acceptors and can be studied by an effective-mass weak-scattering description. Yet, even at the beginning, it was known from luminescence studies that these simple concepts failed to describe the various 'deep levels' introduced near the middle of the energy gap by strong localized imperfections. These imperfections not only include some interstitial and many substitutional atoms, but also 'broken bonds' associated with surfaces and interfaces, dis location cores and 'vacancies', i.e., vacant iattice sites in the crystal. In all these cases, the electronic structure can be strongly correlated with the details of the atomic structure and the atomic motion. Because these 'deep levels' are strongly localised, electron-electron correlations can also playa significant role, and any weak perturbation treatment from the perfect crystal structure obviously fails. Thus, approximate 'strong coupling' techniques must often be used, in line' with a more chemical de scription of bonding.

Provides a thorough understanding of the chemistry and physics of defects, enabling the reader to manipulate them in the engineering of materials. Reinforces theoretical concepts by placing emphasis on real world processes and applications. Includes two kinds of end-of-chapter problems: multiple choice (to test knowledge of terms and principles) and more extensive exercises and calculations (to build skills and understanding). Supplementary material on crystallography and band structure are included in separate appendices.

Volume 1 of Point Defects in Solids has as its major emphasis defects in ionic solids. Volume 2 now extends this emphasis to semiconductors. The first four chapters treat in some detail the creation, kinetic behavior, inter actions, and physical properties of both simple and composite defects in a variety of semiconducting systems. Also included, as in Vol. 1, are chapters on special topics, namely phonon-defect interactions and defects in organic crystals. Defect behavior in semiconductors has been a subject of considerable interest since the discovery some twenty-five years ago that fast neutron irradiation profoundly affected the electrical characteristics of germanium and silicon. Present-day interest has been stimulated by such semiconductor applications as solar cell power plants for space stations and satellites and semiconductor particle and y-ray detectors, since in both radiation damage can cause serious deterioration. Of even greater practical concern is the need to understand particle damage in order to capitalize upon the develop ing technique of ion implantation as a means of device fabrication. Although the periodic international conferences on radiation effects in semiconductors have served the valuable function of summarizing the extensive work being done in this field, these proceedings are much too detailed and lack the background discussion needed to make them useful to the novice.