Some 30 years ago an informal meeting of the few Nordic specialists in semiconductor physics marked the beginning of what has become a biannual meeting of some hundred physicists and physics students from all the Nordic countries. The 16th Nordic Semiconductor Meeting took place at Laugarvatn, Iceland, June 12–15,1994.As a regional meeting the Nordic Semiconductor meeting has three characteristic features all of which distinguish it from more traditional international meetings in the field. First, it has the purpose of promoting Nordic cooperation in the international field of semiconductor physics. Research in the fields of advanced science and technology in the Nordic countries is likely to benefit from joining national forces before participating in the increasing European integration. Second, there is an unusually large fraction of graduate students amongst the participants of the Nordic Semiconductor Meeting. In fact, attending this conference is traditionally a part of the graduate program in seniconductor physics and technology. The Nordic Semiconductor Meeting is often the first conference of international character that graduate students attend in order to present a paper of poster. Third, there is an interdisciplinary quality of the meeting which is normally not the case for meetings of this size. In particular, the number of professional scientists from industry is comparable to the number of their academic colleagues. This is important for both groups, but perhaps the graduate students benefit most from presenting their results to both groups.The 16th Nordic Semiconductor Meeting, the first one in this series held in Iceland, attracted 129 active participants. The scientific programme was divided in twelve oral sessions. A novelty of this meeting was the emphasis on more fundamental physics in one of the two parallel sessions but more applied topics in the other, although the distinction was sometimes a matter of predilection. A poster session including both basic and applied physics was also organized. Most of the oral sessions included an invited lecture. The invited speakers were all of high international class, five of them working in the Nordic countries, Sami Franssila, Finland, Jostein Grepstad, Norway, Jam Hvam, Denmark, Erik Janzén and Lars Samuelson, Sweden. The other five represented a wider geographical spread, Klaus von Klitzing and Detlef Heitmann, Germany, Gordon Davies, United Kingdom, Markus Büttiker and Chris Palmstrøm, U.S.A. Attendees from China, Japan, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Lithuania also participated in the conference. In addition to the invited lectures some 100 oral papers and 25 posters were contributed.Another novelty of the conference is the fact that the proceedings of the conference are being published in a refereed journal. These proceedings contain all the invited and contributed papers the authors of which complied with the deadline of submission of the manuscripts. The editors paid special attention to prompt publication of the proceedings in order to promote the actuality of the results presented at the conference. Therefore, the deadline was strict, all of the papers were refereed during the conference. Changes suggested by the referees were either made at Laugarvatn or within three weeks from the conference. We are grateful to the international crowd of session chairmen who assumed the task of refereeing the papers, either themselves or with the help of colleagues. Without their impressive qualifications this procedure would not have been as reliable as the quality of the papers deserved. We also want to thank the editorial staff of Physica Scripta for their help and cooperation.It is our hope that the 16th Nordic Semiconductor Meeting succeeded in keeping the tradition of a popular conference series at the same time as mowing slightly the emphasis which may strengthen future meetings. Time will tell. In the meantime, we thank all the participants for their contributions. We are grateful to the sponsors listed below. Their support made the conference possible. Last, but not least, we acknowledge the work of Gerlinde Xander and all the students and co-workers who attended to countless details.Reykjavík 18.7. 1994