chapter 1 Soft Chemical Synthesis and Manipulation of Semiconductor Nanocrystals / chapter 2 Electronic Structure in Semiconductor Nanocrystals / chapter 3 Fine Structure and Polarization Properties of Band-Edge Excitions in Semiconductor Nanocrystals -- chapter 4 Intraband Spectroscopy and Dynamics of Colloidal Semiconductor Quantum Dots -- chapter 5 Charge Carrier Dynamics and Optical Gain in Nanocrystal Quantum Dots: From Fundamental Photophysics to Quantum-Dot Lasing -- chapter 6 Optical Dynamics in Single Semiconductor Quantum Dots / chapter 7 Electrical Properties of Semiconductor Nanocrystals / chapter 8 Tunneling and Optical Spectroscopy of Semiconductor Nanocrystal Quantum Dots: Single-Particle and Ensemble Properties -- chapter 9 III�V Quantum Dots and Quantum Dot Arrays: Synthesis, Optical Properties, Photogenerated Carrier Dynamics, and Applications to Photon Conversion -- chapter 10 Synthesis and Fabrication of Metal Nanocrystal Superlattices -- chapter 11 Optical Spectroscopy of Surface Plasmons in Metal Nanoparticles / chapter 12 Time-Resolved Spectroscopy of Metal Nanoparticles