Book excerpt: Semiconductor interfaces are of paramount importance in micro, nano- and optoelectronics. Basic as well as applied research on such systems is therefore of extremely high current interest. To meet the continuous need for a better understanding of semiconductor interfaces with respect to both their fundamental physical and chemical properties as well as their applications in modern opto- and microelectronics, the series of international conferences on the formation of semiconductor interfaces was begun. The fourth conference of the series held in Jülich addresses as main topics: clean semiconductor surfaces; adsorbates at semiconductor surfaces; metal-semiconductor, insulator-semiconductor and semiconductor-semiconductor interfaces; devices and wet chemical processes. The 12 invited lectures assess the present status of the research in important areas and about 180 contributed papers describe most recent achievements in the field.