This book is the second of a series of four volumes devoted to the scattering of
light by solids; the first one appeared as Vol. 8 of Topics in Applied Physics in
1975. Since then so much progress has occurred that the editors have found it
necessary to put together three new volumes in order to give a glimpse of the
field. The volumes cover inelastic scattering, in its spontaneous and stimulated
forms, by phonons, magnons, and electronic excitations in crystalline and
amorphous solids. Molecular phenomena are sometimes included when they
help to clarify or to contrast typical solid-state phenomena and for reference
purposes in light scattering from adsorbates at surfaces. Several important
topics, such as the rapidly developing field of light scattering by polymers, have
been left out completely. The material covered ranges from instrumentation to
theory touching also problems of specific materials.