This book presents the fundamentals and the state of the art of the photophysics of molecular
oxygen. The author examines optical transitions between the lowest-lying electronic states in
molecular oxygen and how these transitions respond to perturbation either from an organic
molecule or from the plasmon field of a metal nanoparticle.We live on a planet filled with
light and oxygen. The interaction between these two components forms the basis of excited state
chemistry spanning the fields of synthetic organic chemistry materials chemistry molecular
biology and photodynamic treatment of cancer. Still the fundamental ways in which oxygen is
affected by light is an active subject of research and is continually being developed and
rationalized.In this book readers will learn that singlet oxygen the excited state of oxygen
that exhibits unique chemical reactivity can be selectively made via direct optical excitation
of oxygen in a sensitizer-free system.Readers will also discover that this approach can perturb
living cells differently depending on the singlet oxygen dose.
