Abstract

Since its 1930 inception as a mechanism for heat dissipation, the exciton has become well established as a fundamental excitation in all condensed matter. We will review the exciton’s traditional spectroscopic and energy transport roles and more recent developments such as self-screening, Bose condensation, and participation in nonlinear optical and transport phenomena. Similarities among exciton phenomena in substantially different condensed media will be emphasized. For example, the structures of the primary functional systems of photosynthesis have recently been established in atomic detail by x-ray diffraction, but prediction of their properties presents a challenge to exciton theory.

© 1987 Optical Society of America