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 molecules
energy transfer
• exciton interactions
• electronic and vibrational circular dichroism
• coherence and dephasing
• ultrafast pump-probe and photon-echo spectroscopy
• single-molecule and fluorescence-correlation spectroscopy
• Raman scattering
• multiphoton absorption
• quantum optics and non-linear optics
• entropy changes during photoexcitation
• electronic and vibrational Stark effects 
  
• studies of fast processes in single molecules
• two-dimensional electronic and vibrational spectroscopy

This 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.