0387989374

There are many books in the market devoted to the review of certain fields. This book is different from those in that authors not only provide reviews of the fields but also present their own important contributions to the fields in a tutorial way. As a result, researchers who are already in the field of ultrafast dynamics in semicon­ ductors and its device applications as well as researchers and graduate students just entering the field will benefit from it. This book is made up of recent new developments in the field of ultrafast dynamics in semiconductors. It consists of nine chapters. Chapter 1 reviews a mi­ croscopic many-body theory which allows one to compute the linear and non-linear optical properties of semiconductor superlattices in the presence of homogeneous electric fields. Chapter 2 deals with ultrafast intersubband dynamics in quantum wells and device structures. Chapter 3 is devoted to Bloch oscillations in semicon­ ductors and their applications. Chapter 4 discusses transient electron transport phe­ nomena, such as electron ballistic transport and electron velocity overshoot phe­ nomena as well as non-equilibrium phonon dynamics in nanostructure semicon­ ductors. Chapter 5 reviews experimental and theoretical work on the use of the phase properties of one or more ultrashort optical pulses to generate and control electrical currents in semiconductors.