Photon-assisted transport in semiconductor nanostructures

In this review we focus on electronic transport through semiconductor nanostructures which are drivenby ac fields. Along the review we describe the available experimental information on different nanostructures, like resonant tunneling diodes, superlattices or quantum dots, together with different theoretical techniques used in the study of photon-assisted transport. These theoretical tools such as, for instance, the Floquet formalism, the nonequilibrium Green's function technique or the density matrix technique, are suitable for tackling with problems where the interplay of different aspects like nonequilibrium,nonlinearity, quantum confinement or electron-electron interactions gives rise to many intriguing new phenomena. Along the review we give many examples which demonstrate the possibility of using appropriate ac fields to control/manipulate coherent quantum states in semiconductor nanostructures. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.