Physics of p‐n junctions and semiconductor devices edited by S. M. Ryvkin and Yu. V. Shmartsev

The title may seem vague and this is perhaps in keeping with the book. There is no introduction or other indication of how the book came to be assembled. It was oublished in Russian in 1969 for the A. F. Ioffe Physicotechnical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR but there is no indication whether it was associated with a conference or whether, slightly late, it commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Ioffe Institute. The book consists of 68 articles on topics from n -p -n -p -n -p silicon device structures to strain effects in polycrystalline films of indium antimonide and gallium antimonide. The articles seem almost randomly distributed and, without even an author index, one has to plough through the list of contents to find a particular article or topic. There is no main theme but half the papers could be classified as concerning either multilayer silicon structures (thyristors etc.), optoelectronic properties of p-n junctions in II I-V compounds, semiconductor lasers, thin-film properties, or pressure effects in semiconductors. Partly because of the delay in publishing, some of the material or similar work by other authors has appeared in journals elsewhere. However, some of the articles are of interest and do add to some extent to the state of knowledge. For example, though work on thermally stimulated currents in gallium phosphide junctions has been reported elsewhere, more reliable methods of analysis are given in an article in the book. It is not clear for whom the book is written, as it serves as neither an introduction, authoritative treatise or bibliography concerning p-n junctions and devices, nor as a compendium of recent work on one particular aspect. The final crunch is the cost of the 366 page book, which is only matched by the number of different contributing (158).