Known and developed over the past twenty five years, lasers have been experimented in a variety of processes with an uneven success. Apart from fundamental physics experiments in which the various aspects of coherence are systematically exploited, applications in the field of Materials Science have been scattered recently over so many situations that it is apparently difficult today to conceive a comprehensive interpretation of all physical processes encountered. In some domains of research like photochemistry, development has been fast and rather self-supporting. In others, like solid-state processing, progress has been either very specific or deviated towards marginal applications, or else emerged as a joint-venture between physicists and chemists. This yielded a number of professional meetings, where day-to-day research activities are presented. In 1982, the Cargese ASI on "Cohesive properties of semiconductors under laser irradiation" was one of such meetings at which a prospective of the field was discussed at length in ebullient round-table sessions. Quoted from the proceedings, "the Institute helped to discern clearly the limits of existing theoretical approaches and the directions along which work is urgently needed within the next few years". Four years have passed and the field has literally explo ded. It must be mentioned that some of the most striking developments over the past two years were accurately predicted at the Institute in Cargese.

Inhalt
Electronic Structure at Semiconductor Surfaces and Interfaces.- Molecule-Surface Interaction: Vibrational Excitations.- Melting and Surfaces.- Short-Pulse Surface Interactions.- Nonequilibrium Phase Transitions.- Dislocation Microstructures in Nonequilibrium Materials.- Transport Properties of Laser-Generated Non-Equilibrium Plasmas in Semiconductors.- Nonequilibrium Phases and Phase Transitions in the Surface Melt Morphology of Laser Irradiated Silicon.- Adsorption, Desorption, and Surface Reactions.- Theory of Spectroscopy and Dynamics in Laser-Irradiated Adspecies-Surface Systems.- Monte-Carlo Simulations of Surface Reactions.- Mechanisms of Laser-Induced Desorption from Insulators and Compound Semiconductors.- Gas-Surface Interactions Stimulated by Laser Radiation: Bases and Applications.- Photochemistry of Transition Metal Complexes.- Kinetics of Laser-Induced Pyrolytic Chemical Processes and the Problem of Temperature Measurements.- Diffusion in Liquids.- The Solid-Solid Interface Under Laser-Irradiation.- Photochemistry with Particulate Semiconductors and Electrodes.- Laser Enhanced Electroplating.- UV Laser Ablation of Polymers.- Thermochemical Laser Lithography on the Basis of Local Oxidation of Thin Metal Films.- Laser Induced Metal Oxidation.- Optically Enhanced Oxidation.- U.V. Light Induced Oxidation of GaAs.- Participants.