Microscopic modeling of energy relaxation and decoherence in quantum optoelectronic devices at the nanoscale

We shall review and discuss the key problem of providing a microscopic modeling of state-of-the-art electronic quantum devices. In particular we shall focus on the description of energy-relaxation and decoherence phenomena, explicitly showing the intrinsic limitations of some of the existing treatments (the conventional Markovian approach) via analytical results, and proposing an alternative formulation of the problem in terms of a generalized Fermi's Golden Rule.