Introduction.- Coherent Spectroscopy of Semiconductors.- Initial Relaxation of Photoexcited Carriers.- Cooling of Hot Carriers.- Phonon Dynamics.- Exciton Dynamics.- Carrier Tunneling in Semiconductor Nanostructures.- Carrier Transport in Semiconductor Nanostructures.- Recent Developments.

Ultrafast spectroscopy of semiconductors and semiconductor nanostructures is currently one of the most exciting areas of research in condensed-matter physics. Remarkable recent progress in the generation of tunable femtosecond pulses has allowed direct investigation of the most fundamental dynamical processes in semiconductors. This second edition presents the most striking recent advances in the techniques of ultrashort pulse generation and ultrafast spectroscopy; it discusses the physics of relaxation, tunneling and transport dynamics in semiconductors and semiconductor nanostructures following excitation by femtosecond laser pulses.