A new class of insulating solids was recently discovered. When irradiated by a few visible photons, these solids give rise to a macroscopic excited domain that has new structural and electronic orders quite different from the starting ground state. This occurrence is called “photoinduced phase transition”, and this multi-authored book reviews recent theoretical and experimental studies of this new phenomenon.Why and how do photoexcited few electrons finally result in an excited domain with a macroscopic size? How is the resultant photoinduced phase different from the ordinary thermal-induced phase? This review volume answers those essential questions.This book has been selected for coverage in:• CC / Physical, Chemical & Earth Sciences• Index to Scientific Book Contents® (ISBC)Contents: Theories for Photoinduced Structural Phase Transitions and Their Dynamics (K Nasu)Time-Resolved Spectroscopy of the Dynamics of Photoinduced Ionic-to-Neutral Phase Transition in Tetrathiafulvalen-P-Chloranil Crystals (K Tanimura)Study on the Cooperative Photoinduced Low-Spin to High-Spin State Conversion Processes (O Sakai & T Ogawa)Femtosecond Dynamics of the Photoinduced Lattice Rearrangements in Quasi-One-Dimensional Halogen-Bridged Platinum Complexes (T Suemoto et al.)Monte Carlo Simulations on Ising-Like Models for Photoinduced Phase Transitions (T Kawamoto & S Abe)Photoinduced Phase Transitions in One-Dimensional Correlated Electron Systems (H Okamoto et al.)Probing Photoinduced Structural Phase Transitions by Fast or Ultra-Fast Time-Resolved X-Ray Diffraction (H Cailleau et al.)Readership: Graduate students and researchers in solid state optics, nonlinear science, chaos and dynamical systems.