physicists and chemists. This yielded a number of professional meetings, where day-to-day research activities are presented. In 1982, the Cargese ASI on "Cohesive properties of semiconductors under laser irradiation" was one of such meetings at which a prospective of the field was discussed at length in ebullient round-table sessions. Quoted from the proceedings, "the Institute helped to discern clearly the limits of existing theoretical approaches and the directions along which work is urgently needed within the next few years". Four years have passed and the field has literally explo­ ded. It must be mentioned that some of the most striking developments over the past two years were accurately predicted at the Institute in Cargese.