This book contains the proceedings of the International Meeting on Confined Excitons held in Rome in April 1987. The aim of the meeting was to discuss excitons confined in a variety of systems from semi-infinite solids to quantum wells. In the part on excitons in semi-infinite solids, the long-running discussion on exciton reflectance, involving the concepts of additional boundary conditions and the dead layer, is summarized and extended. The papers on excitons in thin films and in "thick" quantum wells bridge the gap between semi-infinite semiconductors and the usual quantum wells, presenting interesting results on exciton quantization. The third part reports many new results in the recently developed area of excitons in quantum wells and on the very new topic of excitons in quantum wires. Knowledge of the quantum well properties is an important aspect in the determination of exciton states, so tutorial articles on the growth and band structure of quantum wells are also included.

Inhalt
I Excitons in Semi-infinite Solids.- Exciton Reflectivity and Additional Boundary Conditions.- Microscopic Theory of Exciton Polaritons in Semi-infinite Solids.- Exciton Polaritons near Surfaces: The Coherent Wave Approach.- Surface-Exciton Polaritons: A Few Fresh Ideas.- Screening Effect on Exciton Polaritons in Semi-infinite Semiconductors.- Optical Dephasing of Wannier Excitons in GaAs.- True Radiative Lifetime of Free Excitons in GaAs.- Lifetime of Free Excitons in GaAs.- Exciton Masses in Solids.- Quantum Theory of Polaritons.- Influence on Excitons of Band Bending near Surfaces and Interfaces.- II Excitons in Thin Films.- Exciton-Polaritons in a Slab; ABC and ABC-Free Theory.- Wave Functions and Optical Properties of Excitons in a Slab.- Wannier Excitons at GaAs Surfaces and in Thin GaAs Layers.- III Excitons in Superlattices and in Quantum Wells.- Key Aspects of Molecular Beam Epitaxy and Properties of Ga0.47In0 53As/Al0 48In0 52 As Superlattices.- MBE Growth and Characterization of Ternary and Quaternary Semiconductor Alloys and Heterostructures.- Crystallographic and Electronic Properties of the (GaAs)1(InAs)1(001) Superlattice.- Electronic States in Heterostructures.- Electronic States of Heterostructures in the Envelope-Function Approximation.- Near Band Gap Photoemission in Al0.27Ga0.63As/GaAs Quantum Wells.- Excitons in Heterostructures.- Electron-Hole Exchange Interaction in Quantum Wells.- Optical Properties of Excitons in Quantum Wells.- Excitons in II-VI Multiquantum Wells.- Optical Spectroscopy of Excitons in Quantum Wells Under an Electric Field.- Observation of Forbidden Transitions in Coupled Quantum Wells.- Excitons and Biexcitons in Semiconductor Quantum Wires.- Index of Contributors.