This State-of-the-Art survey award will send Dr. Rameshwar N. Bhargava, of Philips Laboratories of Briarcliff Manor, New York, to Japan to do an in-depth critical survey of recent Japanese developments in optical properties of nanocrystals and nanocom- posites of II-VI semiconductors. Dr. Bhargava will attend the 5th International Conference on II-VI Compounds and then spend three weeks visiting related Japanese industrial and academic research institutions working on the optical properties of nanoclusters and nanocomposites.