Hartmut Haug - Böcker

This book contains all the papers presented at the NATO workshop on "Optical Switching in Low Dimensional Systems" held in Marbella, Spain from October 6th to 8th, 1988. Optical switching is a basic function for optical data processing, which is of technological interest because of its potential parallelism and its potential speed. Semiconductors which exhibit resonance enhanced optical nonlinearities in the frequency range close to the band edge are the most intensively studied materials for optical bistability and fast gate operation. Modern crystal growth techniques, particularly molecular beam epitaxy, allow the manufacture of semiconductor microstructures such as quantum wells, quantum wires and quantum dots in which the electrons are only free to move in two, one or zero dimensions, of the optically excited electron-hole pairs in these low respectively. The spatial confinement dimensional structures gives rise to an enhancement of the excitonic nonlinearities. Furthermore, the variations of the microstruture extensions, of the compositions, and of the doping offer great new flexibility in engineering the desired optical properties. Recently, organic chain molecules (such as polydiacetilene) which are different realizations of one dimensional electronic systems, have been shown also to have interesting optical nonlinearities. Both the development and study of optical and electro-optical devices, as well as experimental and theoretical investigations of the underlying optical nonlinearities, are contained in this book.

Die statistische Physik ist eine der Hauptvorlesungen im Physikstudium. Sie stellt nicht nur die Grundlagen für die Thermodynamik bereit, sondern ist notwendig zur Beschreibung aller physikalischer Prozesse, bei denen viele Teilchen beteiligt sind. Auch Nichtgleichgewichtsprozesse wie Transportvorgänge lassen sich nicht ohne die statistischen Grundgleichungen, die Masergleichungen und die Boltzmann- sowie Fokker-Planck-Gleichung verstehen. Das Buch setzt nur geringe Kenntnisse der phänomenologischen Thermodynamik und der Quantenmechanik voraus und entwickelt in zwei Hauptteilen die Statistik von physikalischen Systemen im Gleichgewicht und außerhalb des Gleichgewichts. In beiden Teilen werden sowohl klassische Systeme als auch entartete Quantensysteme in konkreten Beispielen vorgestellt, damit der Leser begreift, wie physikalische Eigenschaften berechnet werden können.

Nanoscale miniaturization and femtosecond laser-pulse spectroscopy require a quantum mechanical description of the carrier kinetics that goes beyond the conventional Boltzmann theory.

Nanoscale miniaturization and femtosecond laser-pulse spectroscopy require a quantum mechanical description of the carrier kinetics that goes beyond the conventional Boltzmann theory. On these extremely short length and time scales, the electrons behave as do partially coherent waves. This monograph deals with quantum kinetics for transport in low-dimensional microstructures and for ultra-short laser pulse spectroscopy. The nonequilibrium Green function theory is described and used for the derivation of the quantum kinetic equations. Numerical methods for the solution of the retarded quantum kinetic equations are discussed and results are presented for high-field transport and for mesoscopic transport phenomena. Quantum beats, polarization decay, and non-Markovian behaviour are treated for femtosecond spectroscopy on a microscopic basis.Since the publishing of the first edition in 1996, the nonequilibrium Green function technique has been applied to a large number of new research topics, and the revised edition introduces the reader to many of these areas, such as molecular electronics, noise calculations, build-up of screening and polaron correlations, and non-Markovian relaxation, among others. Connection to recent experiments is made, and it is emphasized how the quantum kinetic theory is essential in their interpretation.

The current technological revolution in the development of computing devices has created a demand for a textbook on the quantum theory of the electronic and optical properties of semiconductors and semiconductor devices. This book successfully fulfills this need. Based on lectures given by the authors, it is a comprehensive introduction for researchers or graduate-level students to the subject. Certain sections can also serve as a graduate-level textbook for use in solid state physics courses or for more specialized courses. The final chapters establish a direct link to current research in semiconductor physics.

The current technological revolution in the development of computing devices has created a demand for a textbook on the quantum theory of the electronic and optical properties of semiconductors and semiconductor devices. This book successfully fulfills this need. Based on lectures given by the authors, it is a comprehensive introduction for researchers or graduate-level students to the subject. Certain sections can also serve as a graduate-level textbook for use in solid state physics courses or for more specialized courses. The final chapters establish a direct link to current research in semiconductor physics.

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.

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.

This textbook presents the basic elements needed to understand and engage in research in semiconductor physics. It deals with elementary excitations in bulk and low-dimensional semiconductors, including quantum wells, quantum wires and quantum dots. The basic principles underlying optical nonlinearities are developed, including excitonic and many-body plasma effects. The fundamentals of optical bistability, semiconductor lasers, femtosecond excitation, optical Stark effect, semiconductor photon echo, magneto-optic effects, as well as bulk and quantum-confined Franz-Keldysh effects are covered. The material is presented in sufficient detail for graduate students and researchers who have a general background in quantum mechanics.

This textbook presents the basic elements needed to understand and engage in research in semiconductor physics. It deals with elementary excitations in bulk and low-dimensional semiconductors, including quantum wells, quantum wires and quantum dots. The basic principles underlying optical nonlinearities are developed, including excitonic and many-body plasma effects. The fundamentals of optical bistability, semiconductor lasers, femtosecond excitation, optical Stark effect, semiconductor photon echo, magneto-optic effects, as well as bulk and quantum-confined Franz-Keldysh effects are covered. The material is presented in sufficient detail for graduate students and researchers who have a general background in quantum mechanics.

This invaluable textbook presents the basic elements needed to understand and research into semiconductor physics. It deals with elementary excitations in bulk and low-dimensional semiconductors, including quantum wells, quantum wires and quantum dots. The basic principles underlying optical nonlinearities are developed, including excitonic and many-body plasma effects. Fundamentals of optical bistability, semiconductor lasers, femtosecond excitation, the optical Stark effect, the semiconductor photon echo, magneto-optic effects, as well as bulk and quantum-confined Franz-Keldysh effects, are covered. The material is presented in sufficient detail for graduate students and researchers with a general background in quantum mechanics.

This invaluable textbook presents the basic elements needed to understand and research into semiconductor physics. It deals with elementary excitations in bulk and low-dimensional semiconductors, including quantum wells, quantum wires and quantum dots. The basic principles underlying optical nonlinearities are developed, including excitonic and many-body plasma effects. Fundamentals of optical bistability, semiconductor lasers, femtosecond excitation, the optical Stark effect, the semiconductor photon echo, magneto-optic effects, as well as bulk and quantum-confined Franz-Keldysh effects, are covered. The material is presented in sufficient detail for graduate students and researchers with a general background in quantum mechanics.

This invaluable textbook presents the basic elements needed to understand and research into semiconductor physics. It deals with elementary excitations in bulk and low-dimensional semiconductors, including quantum wells, quantum wires and quantum dots. The basic principles underlying optical nonlinearities are developed, including excitonic and many-body plasma effects. Fundamentals of optical bistability, semiconductor lasers, femtosecond excitation, the optical Stark effect, the semiconductor photon echo, magneto-optic effects, as well as bulk and quantum-confined Franz-Keldysh effects, are covered. The material is presented in sufficient detail for graduate students and researchers with a general background in quantum mechanics.This fifth edition includes an additional chapter on 'Quantum Optical Effects' where the theory of quantum optical effects in semiconductors is detailed. Besides deriving the 'semiconductor luminescence equations' and the expression for the stationary luminescence spectrum, results are presented to show the importance of Coulombic effects on the semiconductor luminescence and to elucidate the role of excitonic populations.