Coherent control and decoherence of charge states in quantum dots

This Chapter contains a review of the recent results, both experimental and theoretical, related to optical control of carriers confined in semiconductor quantum dots. The physics of Rabi oscillations of exciton and biexciton occupations, as well as time-domain interference experiments are discussed. Next, the impact of carrier--phonon interaction in a semiconductor structure is described and modern methods of theoretical description of the carrier--phonon kinetics and of the resulting dephasing are presented.