Table of contents

The properties of hot electrons in systems where electrons and phonons experience quantum confinement are reviewed. The modifications to the behaviour of electrons and phonons brought about by confinement are described, particularly with reference to the principal scattering mechanism. The latter include the interaction with longitudinal optical phonons and plasmons, along with carrier-carrier effects. Some conflict in the literature concerning Fuchs-Kliewer polaritons is discussed. Low-temperature interactions with acoustic phonons are described. A central topic is that of energy relaxation, and the experimental and theoretical data relating to this form a large part of the review. Energy relaxation mechanisms in the femtosecond to nanosecond regimes, including intersubband and well-capture processes, are eventually summarized. An equally large section deals with hot-electron transport; in which negative differential resistance and other instabilities associated with parallel transport are discussed before turning to ballistic transport and impact ionization.

The interaction of electrons with nuclei is well understood and sufficiently weak to allow the separation of nuclear structure aspects from those connected with the reaction itself. Nevertheless the complexity of the nuclear spectrum remains as a stumbling block for a simple interpretation of the large mass of experimental data. Sum rules, which wash out the details of nuclear excited states, allow one to remain with the basic features of the nucleus. The rather long history of electronuclear sum rules has proved the power of the method, while the progress made in the many-body problem, together with the high accuracy of electron scattering data have transformed the sum rule techniques into stringent tests for nuclear theories and experiments.