Polarons And Excitons In Polar Semiconductors And Ionic Crystals

The 1982 Antwerp Advanced Study Institute on "Physics of Polarons and Excitons in Polar Semiconductors and Ionic Crystals" took place from July 26 till August 5 at the Conference Center Priorij Corsen donk, a restored monastery, close to the city of Antwerp. It was the seventh Institute in our series which started in 1971. This Advanced Study Institute, which was held fifty years after Landau introduced the polaron concept, can be considered as the third major international symposium devoted to the physics of pola rons. The first such symposium took place in St. Andrews in 1962 under the title "Polarons and Excitons" [I]. The early theoretical developments related to polarons were reviewed in depth at this meeting; the derivation of the polaron hamiltonian by Frohlich, the Frohlich weak coupling theory (and the equivalent weak coupling canonical transformations), the Landau-Pekar and Bogolubov strong coupling theory and the Feynman polaron model formulated with his path integrals. The main emphasis was on the polaron self-energy, effective mass and mobility. From the experimental side the first evidence for polaron effects was provided by the pioneering cyclotron and mobility measurements o~ the silver halides by F. e. Brown and his group. Also the significance of polaron effects for the under standing of excitons in ionic crystals was a central topic in St. Andrews. The second Advanced Study Institute concerning polaron physics was organized at the University of Antwerp (R. U. C. A.

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.

High temperature superconducting theory drew controversy after the discovery of superconductors at close to room temperatures. However, a consistent microscopic theory of HT superconductivity based on bipolaron mechanism leads to a better understanding of microscopic and macroscopic description. By presenting aspects of superconductivity now joined in a strict theory rather than separate models this work is especially useful for graduate students.

The linear polaron model is an excellent example of an exactly soluble, yet nontrivial polaron system. It serves as a trial system or zero-level approximation in many sophisticated methods of polaron investigation. This book analyzes, in particular, the possibility of reduction of the full polaron Hamiltonian to the linear one, and introduces a special method of calculating thermodynamical characteristics based on the calculation of the averages of T-products. This T-product formalism seems to be a more convenient way of doing similar calculations involving Feynman's path integral approach.This book follows a step-by-step approach, from comparatively simple physical ideas to a clear understanding of sophisticated mathematical tools of investigation in modern polaron physics. The reader is able to compare the physical point of view with methods proposed in the book, and at the same time grasp the underlying mathematics.Some familiarity with quantum statistical mechanics is desirable in reading this book.

The properties of self-localized carriers on a lattice are described at a fairly basic level with an emphasis on modern developments in the theory of strong-coupling superconductivity. Large and small polarons and bipolarons provide a number of new physical phenomena both in the normal and superconducting states. The physics of high temperature superconductors is described and explained.