Abstract
This twin special issue, published in the June 2019 issues of Annalen der Physik and physica status solidi (b), gathers a collection of articles corresponding to selected presentations from the 34th International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors (ICPS) held in 2018 in Montpellier, France. This conference followed a series of biannual meetings that started in 1950 in Exeter (UK) and will be continued in 2020 in Sydney (AU). The conference englobes a wide range of fundamental and applied topics related to semiconductor physics including various aspects of material science as well as device physics.The collection of papers covers the most recent developments in several well-established domains, such as quantum transport and spin-related phenomena, light–matter interaction, quantum dot physics, etc. It also encompasses emerging topics in semiconductor physics, as for instance physics of two-dimensional topological insulators as well as novel phenomena in layered materials. In addition, device applications are discussed in several papers, which explore new opportunities enabled by nanoscale engineering.The special issue includes two Review articles. One of them discusses the properties of semiconductor quantum dots by comparing the nano-objects coming from two different worlds, namely colloidal and epitaxially-grown quantum dots (M. Bayer1). The other describes the optical properties of a novel type of nanomaterials – transition metal dichalcogenides nanotubes, which are able to emit bright photoluminescence and can act as efficient optical resonators (T. V. Shubina et al.2).Among prominent contributions, the collection comprises several Feature Articles. One of them highlights the application of semiconductor heterostructures to infrared photodetection (G. M. Penello et al.3). It shows that novel designs based on quantum confinement engineering for quantum well infrared photodetectors enable their operation within the so-called “forbidden gap”, between 1.7 and 2.5 microns. Another feature article focusses on the physics of two-dimensional topological insulators (Durnev and Tarasenko4). It presents theoretical and experimental studies of edge photoelectric effects in topological insulators based on semiconductor quantum wells. The potential of quantum dots for scalable qubit architectures is highlighted in the contribution on charge reconfiguration in isolated quantum dot arrays (J. C. Bayer et al.5). Isolated triple quantum dot systems showing highly tunable long-range transitions are experimentally analyzed.The advances of semiconductor physics are often dependent on the progress in material elaboration and semiconductor technology. Therefore, a large number of the original papers of this collection, published in physica status solidi (b),6 are connected with material science, namely with the new synthesis routes and properties of unconventional semiconductors. One hot topic addressed in many contributions covers the photonic and electronic properties of two-dimensional materials such as graphene, boron nitride or transition metal dichalcogenides. Large-bandgap semiconductors as well as emerging optical materials like GeSn are also investigated. Magnetic effects in electrical transport in different nanostructured materials and devices are analyzed.To summarize, the collected works reflect the present state of the art in different areas of semiconductor physics and point to future directions in this rapidly evolving interdisciplinary field.