This book is intended for graduate and post graduate students, and researchers planning
to start an advanced experimental work in the fast growing field of optical spectroscopy.
Optical spectroscopy methods have numerous applications in physics, chemistry, material,
biological and medical sciences. Probably two most exciting achievements of the optical
spectroscopy are single molecule detection and ultrafast time resolution. The former shifts
research work to a molecular scale and serves as the key tool in areas known as nanochem-
istry and molecular devices. The latter extends the time scale to femtoseconds making
possible direct studies of chemical reactions on the level of the chemical bond dynamics at
the atomic scale. This research field is commonly called Femtochemistry after Nobel price
winer Ahmed H. Zewail.
The progress in the optical spectroscopy was possible because of great developments
in laser physics, optics, electronics and computers. Combining together newest lasers,
advanced detectors and high technology optical components a researcher can assemble
relatively easy a spectroscopy instrument with characteristics which were hardly achievable in
the top level laser research labs a decade ago. Naturally, the first step in this direction is
to be informed on the tools available and to be able to evaluate the benefits and limitations
imposed by different techniques. On the other hand the researchers, who are potentially
interested in such spectroscopy applications, are experts in the fields of their own professional
interest, such as materials science or microbiology, and may have only basic background
knowledge in optics and modem laser physics. The aim of the book is to cover the gap by
providing background information in optics and by focusing on spectroscopy methodology,
tools and instrumentations. The goal is to provide a background for quantitative
estimations of the applicability range of optical spectroscopy methods and to help researchers in
planning, designing and developing of new spectroscopy instruments, and, hopefully, new
spectroscopy methods.