The Advanced Study Institute on Molecular Electro-Optics was held on the campus of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, USA, from July 14 through July 24, 1980. This Advanced Study Institute was attended by sixteen invited lecturers and by forty-eight other participants. The present volume contains the texts of all of the invited lectures presented at the Institute. Although these lectures were supplemented by many animated discussions and by numerous short contributed papers, it was not possible to include these in the present volume. Molecular electro-optics is a difficult subject for research because it incorporates areas of theoretical physics such as elec tromagnetic theory and hydrodynamics of rotational diffusion, ex perimental physics such as lasers, optics, electric pulsers, and data collection via analog to digital converters and signal aver agers, and physical chemistry of macromolecules and colloids in solution (colloid science, biophysical chemistry, double layer polarization). This volume includes chapters on all of these subjects as well as introductions to magnets-optics and to elec trophoretic light scattering. The Advanced Study Institute was sponsored mainly by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization whose financial support made this meeting possible. Additional financial aid was supplied by the National Institutes of Health of the USA through their Fogarty International Center and the National Institute for Arthritis, Metabolism, and Digestive Diseases. Industrial contri buters consisted of the General Electric Company, Cober Electronics, and Malvern Scientific Corporation.

Inhalt
A History of Molecular Electro-optics.- to Modern Electro-optics.- Small Molecules in Electric and Optical Fields.- Rotational Diffusion Coefficients.- The Rotational Diffusion Function in an Electric Field.- Theory of the Kerr Constant.- Electric Birefringence Dynamics.- Kerr Effects of Flexible Macromolecules.- Light Scattering in Electric Fields.- Wavelength Dependent Aspects of Electric Birefringence and Dichroism.- Polarized Fluorescence in an Electric Field.- Interaction of Electric Fields with Membrane-Bound Polyionic Proteins.- Threshold Effects in Field-Induced Conformation Changes and Binding of Ions Including Peptides to Polynucleotides.- Polyelectrolytes: A Survey.- Electro-optical Instrumentation Systems with their Data Acquisition and Treatment.- The Electro-optics of Proteins.- Investigating Nucleic Acids, Nucleoproteins, Polynucleotides, and their Interactions with Small Ligands by Electro-optical Methods.- Electro-optics of Viruses and Bacteriophages.- Application at Electro-optics to the Study of Colloids.- Electro-optical Properties of Liquid Crystals.- An Introduction to Magnetic Birefringence of Large Molecules.- to Laser Light Scattering Spectroscopy in Electrophoresis.- List of Lecturers.