Advances in Solid State Physics

The 2002 Spring Meeting of the "Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft" was held in Regensburg from March 25th to 29th, 2002. The number of conference attendees has remained remarkably stable at about 2800, despite the decreas ing number of German PhD students. This can be taken as an indication that the program of the meeting was very attractive. The present volume of the "Advances in Solid State Physics" contains the written versions of most of the invited talks, also those presented as part of the Symposia. Most of these Symposia were organized by several divisions in collaboration and they covered fascinating selection of topics of current interest. I trust that the book reflects this year's status of the field in Germany. In particular, one notes a slight change in paradigms: from quantum dots and wires to spin transport and soft matter systems in the broadest sense. This seems to reflect the present general trend in physics. Nevertheless, a large portion of the invited papers as well as the discussions at the meeting concentrated on nanostrnctured matter.

Quantum Dots.- High Magnetic Fields in Semiconductor Nanostructures: Spin Effects in Single InAs Quantum Dots.- On the Way to the II–VI Quantum Dot VCSEL.- ZnCdSe Quantum Structures — Growth, Optical Properties and Applications.- Optics.- Photonic Crystals: Optical Materials for the 21st Century.- Quantum Optical Effects in Semiconductors.- Beryllium Chalcogenides: Interface Properties and Potential for Optoelectronic Applications.- ZnO Metal Organic Vapor Phase Epitaxy: Present State and Prospective Application in Optoelectronics and Spin Electronics.- Electron and Spin Transport.- Electrical Spin Injection from Ferromagnetic Metals into GaAs.- Probing the Conduction Channels of Gold Atomic-Size Contacts: Proximity Effect and Multiple Andreev Reflections.- Metal-Insulator Transitions at Surfaces.- The Role of Contacts in Molecular Electronics.- Electronic Transport, Spectral Fine Structures, and Atom Clusters in Quasicrystals and Approximants.- Full Counting Statistics of Mesoscopic Electron Transport.- Nonequilibrium Transport through a Kondo-dot in a Magnetic Field.- Thin Films and Surfaces.- Electrons, Phonons and Excitons at Semiconductor Surfaces.- Diffuse Interface Model for Microstructure Evolution.- Rapidly Produced Thin Films: Laser-Plasma Induced Surface Reactions.- Nanotechnology — Bottom-up Meets Top-down.- Local Ordering Processes in Ferroelectric, Glass-like and Modulated phases: An EPR Study.- Superconducting Systems.- Superconductivity and Non-Fermi Liquid Normal State of Itinerant Ferromagnets.- Infrared Conductivity and Superconducting Energy Gap in MgB2.- MgB2 Wires and Tapes: Properties and Potential.- Electron-Phonon Coupling and Superconductivity in MgB2 and Related Diborides.- Self-Organized Quasi-One Dimensional Structures inHigh-Temperature Superconductors: the Stripe Phase.- Theory of Superconductivity Due to the Exchange of Spin Fluctuations in Hole- and Electron-Doped Cuprate Superconductors: d-Wave Order Parameter.- Disorder Systems and Soft Matter.- Anomalous Behavior of Insulating Glasses at Ultra-low Temperatures.- Colloidal Suspensions — The Classical Model System of Soft Condensed Matter Physics.- Excitable Membranes: Channel Noise, Synchronization, and Stochastic Resonance.- Birth and Sudden Death of a Granular Cluster.- Interacting Neural Networks and Cryptography.- Low Energy Dynamics in Glasses Investigated by Neutron Inelastic Scattering.- Magnetism.- Metallic Magnetism.- Domain State Model for Exchange Bias: Influence of Structural Defects on Exchange Bias in Co/CoO.- Itinerant Ferromagnetism and Antiferromagnetism from a Chemical Bonding Perspective.- Theory of Ferromagnetism in (III, Mn)V Semiconductors.- Tetrahedral Quantum Magnets in One and Two Dimensions.- Applications.- SiGe:C Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors: From Materials Research to Chip Fabrication.- Transition Edge Sensors for Imaging X-ray Spectrometers.- Charge Injection in Polymer Light-Emitting Diodes.- Sensors and the Influence of Process Parameters and Thin Films.