Textbook for third-year undergraduate to first year graduate students in physics and microelectronics. Outlines concepts concerning the description and applications of novel semiconductor microstructures such as quantum wells, superlattices, and heterojunction microdevices in general (e.g. lasers, transistors, optical detectors, and switches). Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Semiconductor optoelectronic devices are at the heart of all information generation and processing systems and are likely to be essential components of future optical computers. With more emphasis on optoelectronics and photonics in graduate programmes in physics and engineering, there is aneed for a text providing a basic understanding of the important physical phenomena involved. Such a training is necessary for the design, optimization, and search for new materials, devices, and application areas. This book provides a simple quantum mechanical theory of important optical processes,i.e. band-to-band, intersubband, and excitonic absorption and recombination in bulk, quantum wells, wires, dots, superlattices, and strained layers including electro-optic effects. The classical theory of absorption, quantization of radiation, and band picture based on k.p perturbation has beenincluded to provide the necessary background. Prerequisites for the book are a knowledge of quantum mechanics and solid state theory. Problems have been set at the end of each chapter, some of which may guide the reader to study processes not covered in the book. The application areas of thephenomena are also indicated.

The composition of modern semiconductor heterostructures can be controlled precisely on the atomic scale to create low-dimensional systems. These systems have revolutionised semiconductor physics, and their impact on technology, particularly for semiconductor lasers and ultrafast transistors, is widespread and burgeoning. This book provides an introduction to the general principles that underlie low-dimensional semiconductors. As far as possible, simple physical explanations are used, with reference to examples from actual devices. The author shows how, beginning with fundamental results from quantum mechanics and solid-state physics, a formalism can be developed that describes the properties of low-dimensional semiconductor systems. Among numerous examples, two key systems are studied in detail: the two-dimensional electron gas, employed in field-effect transistors, and the quantum well, whose optical properties find application in lasers and other opto-electronic devices. The book includes many exercises and will be invaluable to undergraduate and first-year graduate physics or electrical engineering students taking courses in low-dimensional systems or heterostructure device physics.

Microcavities are semiconductor, metal, or dielectric structures providing optical confinement in one, two or three dimensions. At the end of the 20th century, microcavities have attracted attention due to the discovery of a strong exciton-light coupling regime allowing for the formation of superposition light-matter quasiparticles: exciton-polaritons. In the following century several remarkable effects have been discovered in microcavities, including the Bose-Einstein condensation of exciton-polaritons, polariton lasing, superfluidity, optical spin Hall and spin Meissner effects, amongst other discoveries. Currently, polariton devices exploiting the bosonic stimulation effects at room temperature are being developed by laboratories across the world. This book addresses the physics of microcavities: from classical to quantum optics, from a Boltzmann gas to a superfluid. It provides the theoretical background needed for understanding the complex phenomena in coupled light-matter systems, and it presents a broad overview of experimental progress in the physics of microcavities.

Proceedings of a NATO ARW held in Venice, Italy, May 9-13, 1989

In a new branch of physics and technology, called spin-electronics or spintronics, the flow of electrical charge (usual current) as well as the flow of electron spin, the so-called "spin current", are manipulated and controlled together. This book is intended to provide an introduction and guide to the new physics and applications of spin current.

Proceedings of the Baroda Workshop on Nanomaterials, Magnetic Ions and Magnetic Semiconductors studied mostly by Hyperfine Interactions (IWNMS 2004), held in Baroda, India, 10-14 February, 2004. Researchers and graduate students interested in the application of hyperfine interaction techniques, mostly Mössbauer Effect and Perturbed Angular Correlations, to the fast developing fields of magnetic nanomaterials, magnetic ions and magnetic semiconductors will find this volume indispensable. The volume also addresses to the application of synchrotron radiation and ion beams to these systems.