Optical and electronic properties of semiconductors are strongly influenced by the different possibilities of carriers to be distributed among the various extrema of the band structure or the transfer between them. The monograph Optical Properties of III-V Semiconductors is concerned with the III-V bulk and low-dimensional semiconductors with the emphasis on the implications of multi-valley bandstructures on the physical mechanisms essential for opto-electronic devices. The optical response of such semiconductor materials is determined by many-body effects like screening, gap narrowing, Fermi-edge singularity, electron-hole plasma and liquid formation. The discussion of the latter features is presented self-consistently with the dynamics of excitons and carriers resulting from intervalley coupling.

1. Introduction to Semiconductor Band Structures.- 1.1 Electronic States in Crystalline Solids.- 1.2 Band Structure of III-V Semiconductors.- 1.3 Some General Properties of Multi-Valley Band Structures.- 2. Excitons in Multi-Valley Semiconductors.- 2.1 Basic Properties of Three-Dimensional Excitons.- 2.2 Direct-to-Indirect Crossover in Bulk Semiconductors.- 2.3 Exciton Dynamics in AlxGa1?xAs Near Crossover.- 2.4 Excitons in Low-Dimensional Structures.- 2.5 Direct-to-indirect Transitions in 2D and 1D Structures.- 3. Many-Body Effects in Multi-Valley Scenarios.- 3.1 Introduction to Screening in Highly Excited Semiconductors.- 3.2 Band-Gap Renormalization in Bulk Semiconductors.- 3.3 Gap Renormalization in Low-Dimensional Systems.- 3.4 Screening in One-Component Plasmas.- 3.5 Electron-Hole Droplet Formation.- 3.6 Optical Nonlinearities at the Direct Gap of Indirect-Gap Semiconductors.- 4. Intervalley Coupling.- 4.1 Theoretical Considerations.- 4.2 Optical Spectroscopy of Intervalley Coupling.- 4.3 Indirect Stimulated Emission.- 5. Summary and Outlook.- References.