An exciton is an electronic excitation wave consisting of an electron-hole pair which propagates in a nonmetallic solid. Since the pioneering research of Fren kel, Wannier and the Pohl group in the 1930s, a large number of experimental and theoretical studies have been made. Due to these investigations the exciton is now a well-established concept and the electronic structure has been clarified in great detail. The next subjects for investigation are, naturally, dynamical processes of excitons such as excitation, relaxation, annihilation and molecule formation and, in fact, many interesting phenomena have been disclosed by recent works. These excitonic processes have been recognized to be quite important in solid-state physics because they involve a number of basic interactions between excitons and other elementary excitations. It is the aim of this quasi monograph to describe these excitonic processes from both theoretical and experimental points of view. we take a few To discuss and illustrate the excitonic processes in solids, important and well-investigated insulating crystals as playgrounds for excitons on which they play in a manner characteristic of each material. The selection of the materials is made in such a way that they possess some unique properties of excitonic processes and are adequate to cover important interactions in which excitons are involved. In each material, excitonic processes are described in detail from the experimental side in order to show the whole story of excitons in a particular material.
Authors and Affiliations
Department of Physics, Tohoku University, Sendai 980, Japan
Masayasu Ueta
Institute for Solid State Physics, University of Tokyo, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106, Japan
