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The 3rd edition of this textbook offers clear explanations of optical spectroscopic phenomena and shows how spectroscopic techniques are used in modern chemistry, biochemistry and biophysics.Topics included are: electronic and vibrational absorption fluorescence symmetry operations and normal-mode calculations electron transfer from excited moleculesenergy transferexciton interactions electronic and vibrational circular dichroismcoherence and dephasingultrafast pump-probe and photon-echo spectroscopy single-molecule and fluorescence-correlation spectroscopyRaman scatteringmultiphoton absorption quantum optics and non-linear opticsentropy changes during photoexcitationelectronic and vibrational Stark effects studies of fast processes in single moleculestwo-dimensional electronic and vibrational spectroscopyThis revised and updated edition provides expanded discussions of laser spectroscopy, crystal symmetry, birefringence, non-linear optics, solar cells and light-emitting diodes. The explanations are sufficiently thorough and detailed to be useful for researchers, graduate students and advanced undergraduates in chemistry, biochemistry and biophysics. They are based on time-dependent quantum mechanics, but are developed from first principles so that they can be understood by readers with little prior training in the field. Additional topics and highlights are presented in special boxes in the text. The book is richly illustrated with color figures throughout. Each chapter ends with a section of questions for self-examination.

The student edition of Modern Optical Spectroscopy includes a new set of exercises for each chapter. The exercises and problems generally emphasize basic points, and often include simpli?ed absorption or emission spectra or molecular orbitals that can be evaluated easily with the aid of a calculator or spreadsheet. Students who are adept at computer programming will?nd it instructive to try to write algorithms that also could be applied to larger, more complicated sets of data. Spectraintroducedinsomeofthe problems forChaps.4and5areusedagain in later chapters to illustrate how quantities calculated from the spectra can be applied to topics such as resonance energy transfer and exciton interactions. Seattle, November, 2008 William W. Parson Preface This book began as lecture notes for a course on optical spectroscopy that I taught for graduate students in biochemistry, chemistry, and our interdisciplinary programs in molecular biophysics and biomolecular structure and design. I startedexpanding the notes partly to try to illuminate the stream of new experimental information on photosynthetic antennas and reaction centers, but mostly just for fun. I hope that readers will?nd the results not only useful, but also as stimulating as I have.