Optical properties of semiconductor nanocrystals / S.V. Gaponenko.

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

1. Electron states in crystal -- 2. Electron states in an ideal nanocrystal -- 3. Growth of nanocrystals -- 4. General properties of spectrally inhomogeneous media -- 5. Absorption and emission of light by semiconductor nanocrystals -- 6. Resonant optical nonlinearities and related many-body effects -- 7. Interface effects -- 8. Spatially organized ensembles of nanocrystals.

Low-dimensional semiconductor structures, often referred to as nanocrystals or quantum dots, exhibit fascinating behavior and have a multitude of potential applications, especially in the field of communications. This book examines in detail the optical properties of these structures, giving full coverage of theoretical and experimental results, and discusses their technological applications. The author begins by setting out the basic physics of electron states in crystals (adopting a 'cluster-to-crystal' approach), and goes on to discuss the growth of nanocrystals, absorption and emission of light by nanocrystals, optical nonlinearities, interface effects, and photonic crystals. He illustrates the physical principles with references to actual devices such as novel light-emitters and optical switches.