Book excerpt: The NATO Advanced Study Institute on "Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) and Heterostructures" was held at the Ettore Majorana Center for Scientific Culture, Erice, Italy, on March 7-19, 1983, the second course of the International School of Solid-State Device Re search. This volume contains the lectures presented at the Institute. Throughout the history of semiconductor development, the coupling between processing techniques and device structures for both scientific investigations and technological applications has time and again been demonstrated. Newly conceived ideas usually demand the ultimate in existing techniques, which often leads to process innova tions. The emergence of a process, on the other hand, invariably creates opportunities for device improvement and invention. This intimate relationship between the two has most recently been witnessed in MBE and heterostructures, the subject of this Institute. This volume is divided into several sections. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction by providing a perspective of the subject. This is followed by two sections, each containing four chapters, Chapters 2-5 addressing the principles of the MBE process and Chapters 6-9 describ ing its use in the growth of a variety of semiconductors and heteros tructures. The next two sections, Chapters to-II and Chapters 12-15, treat the theory and the electronic properties of the heterostructures, respectively. The focus is on energy quantization of the two dimensional electron system. Chapters 16-17 are devoted to device structures, including both field-effect transistors and lasers and detec tors.