Semiconductors can exhibit electrical instabilities likecurrent runaway, threshold switching, current filamentationor oscillations, when they are driven far from thermodynamicequilibrium. This book presents a coherent theoretical description of such cooperative phenomena induced by generationand recombination processes of charge carriers in semiconductors.

1. Introduction.- 1.1 Instabilities in Semiconductors.- 1.2 Phase Transition Analogies.- 2. Bistability of Homogeneous Steady States.- 2.1 One-Carrier Models.- 2.2 Two-Carrier Models.- 2.3 Excitonic Models.- 3. Small Fluctuations from the Homogeneous Steady State.- 3.1 Linear Modes of One-Carrier Models.- 3.2 Filamentary Instability.- 3.3 Domain Instability.- 3.4 Electromagnetic Modes.- 3.5 Oscillatory Instability.- 4. Stationary Transverse Spatial Structures.- 4.1 Plane Current Layers.- 4.2 Cylindrical Current Filaments.- 4.3 Influence of Boundaries.- 4.4 Filamentation in Two-Carrier Models.- 4.5 Multiple Filaments.- 5. Stability of Transverse Spatial Structures.- 5.1 Plane Current Layers.- 5.2 Cylindrical Current Filaments.- 5.3 Finite Boundary Conditions.- 5.4 Fluctuation-Induced Phase Transitions.- 6. Self-Sustained Oscillations and Chaos.- 6.1 Mechanisms for Oscillatory Behavior.- 6.2 Limit-Cycle Oscillations.- 6.3 Chaos.- References.