Quantum Theory of the Optical and Electronic Properties of Semiconductors

This substantially revised second edition of the Quantum Theory of the Optical and Electronic Properties of Semiconductors presents the basic elements needed to understand and engage in research in semiconductor physics. In this edition misprints have been corrected and new and more detailed material has been added. In order to treat the valence-band structure of semiconductors, an introduction to the k.p theory and the related description in terms of the Luttinger Hamiltonian was included. An introductory chapter on mesoscopic semiconductor structures was added which discusses the envelope function approximation and the modification caused by the spatial quantum confinement. In many chapters the results are developed in parallel first for bulk material, and then for quasi-two-dimensional quantum wells, and for quasi-one-dimensional quantum wires. Semiconductor quantum dots are treated in a separate chapter.

The discussion of time-dependent and coherent phenomena in semiconductors has been considerably extended by including a section dealing with the theoretical description of photon echoes in semiconductors. After the discussion of semiconductor laser physics, optical bistability, and electroabsorption in semiconductors, a new chapter on magneto-absorption has been added, in which magneto-excitons and magneto-plasmas in two-dimensional systems are discussed. The chapter on electron kinetics due to the interaction with longitudinal-optical phonons has been extended and a discussion on carrier-carrier collisions has been added to the chapter dealing with the semiconductor bloch equations. The material is presented in sufficient detail for graduate students and researchers who have a general background in quantum mechanics.

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Contents: Oscillator ModelAtom in a Classical Light FieldPeriodic Lattice of AtomsFree Carrier TransitionsMesoscopic Semiconductor StructuresIdeal Quantum GasesInteracting Electron GasPlasmons and Plasma ScreeningRetarded Green's Function for ElectronsExcitonsPolaritonsSemiconductor Bloch EquationsOptical Quasi-Equilibrium NonlinearitiesOptical BistabilityThe Semiconductor LaserCoherent Effects in SemiconductorsFree-Carrier ElectroabsorptionExciton ElectroabsorptionMagneto — OpticsSemiconductor Quantum DotsKinetics with Phonon ScatteringAppendix A: Field QuantizationAppendix B: Nonequilibrium Green's Functions
Readership: Solid state physicists, engineers, materials and optical scientists.