Excitons, Photons, and Their Coupling Interplay between Elementary and Composite Bosons

Monique Combescot, Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut des NanoSciences de Paris, Sorbonne Université,Shiue-Yuan Shiau, Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Physics and Materials Science, University of Luxembourg

Monique Combescot is a former student of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, France, where she majored in Maths and Physics. In 1973, she obtained her PhD in many-body theory from the University of Paris, France. Following a two-year postdoc at Cornell University, USA, she returned to Paris, taking up a research position at the CNRS. She has taught many undergraduate courses at various universities and engineering schools. In the last two decades, she has also taught graduate courses in Paris and in many other places around the world.


Shiue-Yuan Shiau obtained BSc in 1998 and his MSc in 2002 from National Taiwan University. He received his PhD in physics in 2007 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Following several postdoctoral positions in France, Singapore, and Taiwan, he is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Luxembourg.

1. Highlights of the bookPART I - EXCITONS2. Some ideas on excitons3. Exciton phenomenology4. Semiconductor microscopy5. Wannier excitons6. Exciton many-body effectsPART II - PHOTONS7. Classical electrodynamics in vacuum8. Semiclassical electrodynamics9. Quantum electrodynamics10. Maxwell equations in matterPART III - EXCITON-PHOTON COUPLING11. Photon couplings to excitons12. Exciton-polaritons13. Photon absorption14. Photocreation of excitonsPART IV - APPENDICESAppendix 1 - Second quantization formalismAppendix 2 - Large finite volumeAppendix 3 - Arbitrary (±i) phase factorsAppendix 4 - On wave vector quantizationAppendix 5 - Kronecker symbol and delta functionAppendix 6 - Fourier Series and IntegralsAppendix 7 - Bloch theoremAppendix 8 - Bloch electrons and Bloch functionsAppendix 9 - Coulomb interactions between electrons and holesAppendix 10 - On dielectric constant for long/short-range Coulomb processesAppendix 11 - Angular momenta: additions and matrix representationsAppendix 12 - From valence electrons to holesAppendix 13 - Spin-orbit prefactor: Thomas derivationAppendix 14 - The k · p methodAppendix 15 - Physics of negative masses for Bloch electronsAppendix 16 - Understanding the Kohn-Luttinger HamiltonianAppendix 17 - Coulomb scatterings involving heavy and light holesAppendix 18 - Schrödinger equation in D dimensionAppendix 19 - Number of exciton levels in a finite crystalAppendix 20 - Effect of hole mass difference on exciton degeneracyAppendix 21 - Interband Coulomb interaction, electron-hole pair exchange, and longitudinal-transverse exciton splittingAppendix 22 - Wannier electron statesAppendix 23 - One Wannier exciton through ladder diagramsAppendix 24 - Pauli and Coulomb scatterings between Wannier excitonsAppendix 25 - Reasons for not using the E · d coupling instead of A · pAppendix 26 - Rotating wave approximation versus quantizing the electromagnetic fieldAppendix 27 - On polarization vectorsAppendix 28 - Broadened absorption lineAppendix 29 - More on exciton-polaritonsAppendix 30 - Two coupled bosons with finite lifetime