Spectroscopy of Mesoscopic and Nanoscopic Solids

Abstract

Mesoscopic and nanoscopic solids are systems where the size and the geometric shape have a significant influence on the physical properties. This influence may originate from explicit quantum effects such as size quantization but may as well be of pure geometrical and thus classical nature. Examples for the first group are semiconductor quantum dots or quantum wires, carbon nanotubes, or more generally, two dimensional or one dimensional electron systems. Classical behavior for mesoscopic or nanoscopic systems which is still significantly different to behavior of macroscopic solids has been observed particularly for small metallic particles.