Optical Processes in Semiconductors

https://www.amazon.com/Optical-Processes-Semiconductors-Dover-Physics/dp/0486602753 "Optical Processes in Semiconductors" is a graduate level text that provides an excellent overview of this field. Such an introduction has not previously been offered in any one book. The text is lucid and terse with many citations of original work in the areas discussed. Quite a few figures from important experimental papers are reproduced and generally aid the exposition. In a number of instances these figures are inadequately integrated with the author's text and the reader is left to figure out the significance of some of the legends appearing in the figures. Usually these are sample identification numbers, but sometimes the omissions are more serious. The principal shortcoming of this book is that the author has tried too hard to keep it short and the clarity of the argument has suffered for it. Several important and fairly subtle topics, such as plasma resonance phenomena in optical absorption, are alluded to only briefly. More significantly, the entire subject of photoconductivity, aside from effects in p-n junctions, is barely mentioned. Rather than devote a section of the book to bulk photoconductors, the author has instead chosen to refer the reader to several well-known texts on the subject. Aside from the disregard of photoconductivity, this book is, on the whole, very well done. It achieves the author's goal of providing a clear, concise, and comprehensive introduction to the field on the graduate level. In addition, the inclusion of a wealth of carefully selected experimental data and copious references to original papers make it a valuable reference text. David A. Kiewit Hughes Research Laboratories Malibu, Calif. USA May 1972 doi: 10.1149/1.2404256