While the chemistry, physics, and optical properties of simple atoms and molecules are quite well understood, this book demonstrates that there is much to be learned about the optics of nanomaterials. Through comparative analysis of the size-dependent optical response from nanomaterials, it is shown that although strides have been made in computational chemistry and physics, bridging length scales from nano to macro remains a major challenge. Organic, molecular, polymer, and biological systems are shown to be potentially useful models for assembly. Our progress in understanding the optical properties of biological nanomaterials is important driving force for a variety of applications.

"Vladimir Gavrilenko has developed an extremely useful book for scientists who are interested in the rapidly developing field of nanomaterials with emphasis on the optical properties of these materials. Of particular importance is that the book covers many different kinds of optical properties (linear and nonlinear, coherent and incoherent), and many different kinds of materials (carbon and silicon-based, metals, semiconductors, and biological nanomaterials). For each topic there is a careful discussion of fundamental theory as well as specific applications that have proven important to the development of the field. There are also extensive citations to recent papers."
-Prof. George C. Schatz, Northwestern University, USA