"In the last decade, new directions of modern research, broadly defined as ‘‘nano-scale science and technology’’, have emerged [1, 2]. These new trends involve theability to fabricate, characterize, and manipulate artificial structures, whose features are controlled at the nanometer level. They embrace areas of research asdiverse as engineering, physics, chemistry, materials science, and molecular biology. Research in this direction has been triggered by the recent availability of revolutionary instruments and approaches that allow the investigation of material properties with a resolution close to the atomic level. Strongly connected to suchtechnological advances are the pioneering studies that have revealed new physical properties of matter at a level intermediate between atomic/molecular and bulk."

"In this introductory chapter, we want to stress the point that any development in nanoscience necessarily requires an understanding of the physical laws that govern matter at the nanoscaleand of how the interplay of the various physical properties of a nanoscopic systemtranslates into some novel behavior or into a new physical property. In this sense, the chapter will serve as an overview of basic physical rules governing nanoscalematerials, with a particular emphasis on quantum dots, including their various physical realizations and their possible applications. Quantum dots are the ultimate example of a solid in which all dimensions shrink down to a few nanometers. Moreover, semiconductor quantum dots are probably the most studied nanoscalesystems."

http://www.academia.edu/5517804/NANOPARTICLES_from_theory_to_application_gunter_schmid_