KURT NASSAU, PhD, spent thirty years as a research scientist at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey before retiring in 1989 as Distinguished Research Scientist. He is the holder of seventeen patents and author of over 450 publications, including four other books: Gems Made by Man, Gemstone Enhancement, Experimenting with Color, and Color for Science, Art and Technology.

Preface to the Second Edition.

Preface to the First Edition.

Acknowledgments for the Second Edition.

Acknowledgments for the First Edition.

LIGHT AND COLOR.

Some Fundamentals: Color, Light, and Interactions.

COLOR INVOLVING VIBRATIONS AND SIMPLE EXCITATIONS.

Color Produced by Incandescence.

Color Produced by Gas Excitations.

Color Produced by Vibrations and Rotations.

COLOR INVOLVING LIGAND FIELD EFFECTS.

Color Caused by Transition Metals in a Ligand Field.

COLOR INVOLVING MOLECULAR ORBITALS.

Color in Organic Molecules.

Charge Transfer Color.

COLOR INVOLVING BAND THEORY.

Color in Metals and Semiconductors.

Color Centers.

COLOR INVOLVING GEOMETRICAL AND PHYSICAL OPTICS.

Dispersive Refraction and Polarization.

Scattering and Nonlinear Effects.

Interference and Diffraction.

COLOR-RELATED TOPICS.

Colorants of Many Types.

Vision, Luminescence, Lasers, and Related Topics.

Appendix A: Units, Chromaticity, and Color Order Systems.

Appendix B: Incandescence Equations.

Appendix C: Atoms and Simple Molecules.

Appendix D: Crystal Fields, Ligand Fields, and Molecular Orbitals.

Appendix E: Band Theory.

Appendix F: Prism, Thin Film, and Layer Diffraction Grating.

Appendix G: Recommendations for Additional Reading.

Index.