The Advanced Study Institute of which this volume is the proceedings was held at the University of Exeter during 24 August to 6 September 1975. There were seventy participants of whom eighteen were lecturers and members of the advisory committee. All NATO countries except Holland, Iceland and Portugal were re­ presented. In addition a small number of participants came from non-NATO countries Japan, Ireland and Switzerland. An aim of the organising committee was to bring together scientists of wide interests and expertise in the defect structure of insulators and semiconductors. Thus major emphases in the pro­ gramme concerned the use of spectroscopy and microscopy in revealing the structure of point defects and their aggregates, line defects as well as planar and volume defects. The lectures revealed that in general little is known of the fate of the interstitial in most irradiated solids. Nor are the dynamic properties of defects under­ stood in sufficient detail that one can state how point defects cluster and eventually become macroscopic defects. Although this book faithfully reproduces the material covered by the invited speakers, it does not really follow the flow of the lectures. This is because it seemed advisable for each lecturer to provide a single self-contained and authoritative manuscript, rather than a series of short articles corresponding to the lectures.