This Volume 44 of Advances in Solid State Physics contains the written versions of most of the invited lectures of the Spring Meeting of the Condensed Matter Physics section of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft held from March 8 to 12, 2004 in Regensburg, Germany. Many of the topical talks given at the numerous and very lively symposia are also included. They have covered extremely interesting and timely subjects. Thus the book truly reflects the status of the field of solid state physics in 2004, and indicates its importance, not only in Germany but also internationally.

The present volume 45 of Advances in Solid-State Physics contains the written versions of selected invited lectures from the spring meeting of the Arbeitskreis Festk rperphysik of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft in the World Year of Physics 2005, the Einstein Year, which was held from 4 - 11 March 2005 in Berlin, Germany. Many topical talks given at the numerous symposia are included. Most of these were organized collaboratively by several of the divisions of the Arbeitskreis.

The book presents, to some extent, the status of the field of solid-state physics in 2005 not only in Germany but also internationally. It is ''nanoscience'', namely the physics of quantum dots and wires, electrical transport, optical properties, spin transport in nanostructures, and magnetism on the nanoscale, that is of central interest to the physics community. Also, soft matter and biological systems are covered.

The present volume contains the written versions of most of the invited talks of the Spring Meeting of the Condensed Matter Physics section of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft held from March 25 to 29, 2002 in Regensburg, Germany. Also contained are those talks presented as part of the Symposia most of which were organized by several divisions in collaboration and covered a fascinating selection of topics of current interest. Thus this volume reflects the status of condensed matter physics in Germany in the year 2002. In particular, one notes a slight change in paradigms: from quantum dots and wires to spin transport and soft matter systems in the broadest sense. This seems to reflect the present general trend in physics. Nevertheless, a large portion of the invited papers concentrate on nanostructured matter.

This volume contains most of the invited talks of the 2001 meeting of the Solid State Physics Section of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft held from March 26 to 30 in Hamburg, Germany. The topics covered reflect the present activities in this lively domain of modern physics and are thus supposed to flashlight the state-of-the-art in condensed matter physics in Germany in the year 2001.

Volume 43 of Advances in Solid State Physics contains the written versions of most of the plenary and invited lectures of the Spring Meeting of the Condensed Matter Physics section of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft held from March 24 to 28, 2003 in Dresden, Germany. Many of the topical talks given at the numerous and very lively symposia are also included. They covered an extremely interesting selection of timely subjects. Thus the book truly reflects the status of the field of solid state physics in 2003, and explains its attractiveness, not only in Germany but also internationally.

The 2002 Spring Meeting of the "Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft" was held in Regensburg from March 25th to 29th, 2002. The number of conference attendees has remained remarkably stable at about 2800, despite the decreas ing number of German PhD students. This can be taken as an indication that the program of the meeting was very attractive. The present volume of the "Advances in Solid State Physics" contains the written versions of most of the invited talks, also those presented as part of the Symposia. Most of these Symposia were organized by several divisions in collaboration and they covered fascinating selection of topics of current interest. I trust that the book reflects this year's status of the field in Germany. In particular, one notes a slight change in paradigms: from quantum dots and wires to spin transport and soft matter systems in the broadest sense. This seems to reflect the present general trend in physics. Nevertheless, a large portion of the invited papers as well as the discussions at the meeting concentrated on nanostrnctured matter.

This volume contains the invited papers of the Spring meeting of the Arbeitskreis Festkorperphysik of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, which has been held in Regensburg in the period March 23 - 27, 1998. The meeting has been attended by more than 2800 participants from all areas of solid state physics and other areas of physics as well since this time it has been organized together with the yearly general meeting. The invited and plenary talks as well as the numerous symposia reflected most recent developments in physics. This book covers the current status of the fileds and shows the excitement which has been felt by the speakers when presenting their results."

This Volume 44 of Advances in Solid State Physics contains the written versions of most of the invited lectures of the Spring Meeting of the Condensed Matter Physics section of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft held from March 8 to 12, 2004 in Regensburg, Germany. Many of the topical talks given at the numerous and very lively symposia are also included. They have covered extremely interesting and timely subjects. Thus the book truly reflects the status of the field of solid state physics in 2004, and indicates its importance, not only in Germany but also internationally.

When we first had the idea of organizing the International Conference on Localization, Interaction, and Transport Phenomena in Impure Metals we expected to bring together at most a hundred physicists. The fact that more than a hundred and fifty participated clearly shows that the topic of the meeting was of great interest to an important fraction of the solid state physics community. In fact, remembering that the localization problem is already a quarter of a century old, it is quite amazing to see how, during the last five years, new and very successful theoretical models emerged which were confirmed by sometimes ingenious experiments. The number of groups involved in the study of localization or related problems in the transport properties of matter even seems to be increasing. The main purpose of this conference was to review the present status of activities in the localization field and hopefully to stimulate new ideas. A study of the Conference Proceedings ascertains that we were successful in reaching these two goals. Moreover, the presence of the authors of the about ninety contributed papers published in the supplement volume assured the very lively atmosphere which characterizes successful conferences. We think that this was the most important ingredient for achieving the second goal in particular. We thank our sponsors for their support, which was given unreluctantly and generously. Especially, we gratefully acknowledge the hospitality of the PTB and the city of Braunschweig during the time of the meeting.

The 2001 Spring Meeting of the 65th Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft was held together with the 65. Physikertagung, in Hamburg, during the pe riod March 26 30 2001. With more than 3500 conference attendees, a record has again been achieved after several years of stabilisation in participation. This proves the continuing and now even increasing, attraction of solid state physics, especially for young colleagues who often discuss for the first time their scientific results in public at this meeting. More than 2600 scientific pa pers were presented orally, as well as posters, among them about 120 invited lectures from Germany and from abroad. This Volume 41 of "Advances in Solid State Physics" contains the written versions of half of the latter. We nevertheless hope that the book truly reflects the current state of the field. Amazingly enough, the majority of the papers as well as the discussions at the meeting, concentrated on the nanostructured solid state. This re flects the currently extremely intensive quest for developing the electronic and magnetic device generations of the future, which stimulates science be sides the challenge of the unknown as has always been the case since the very beginning of Solid State Physics about 100 years ago.

The present volume 45 of Advances in Solid-State Physics contains the written versions of selected invited lectures from the spring meeting of the Arbeitskreis Festk rperphysik of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft in the World Year of Physics 2005, the Einstein Year, which was held from 4 - 11 March 2005 in Berlin, Germany. Many topical talks given at the numerous symposia are included. Most of these were organized collaboratively by several of the divisions of the Arbeitskreis.

The book presents, to some extent, the status of the field of solid-state physics in 2005 not only in Germany but also internationally. It is ''nanoscience'', namely the physics of quantum dots and wires, electrical transport, optical properties, spin transport in nanostructures, and magnetism on the nanoscale, that is of central interest to the physics community. Also, soft matter and biological systems are covered.