Principles of Fluorescence Spectroscopy

Nothing to do with rubbish collection of chapters made of friends and friends of friends and me-too sections, called books... This is an excellent book, as all useful reference books should be, like those of the old times: well written with a unique logic line, uniform notations and plots. Among others, quite low price for the quality of paper and number of pages. I would even say that this is a very good introductory book: it worked well with me, an EE.

Whether you like it or not (and I do, very much), every student of fluorescence spectroscopy or imaging should be familiar with Lakowicz. Not for beginners or for the faint of heart, this book combines detailed descriptions of the theory behind fluorescence and luminescence phenomena with a more than adequate set of examples and study problems. Keep this one on the shelf, especially if you occasionally need to brush up on time-resolved fluorescence techniques or energy transfer phenomena- I've used it as my standard reference over 10 years both as a student and as a professional practitioner of fluorescence spectroscopy, and I keep coming back to it.

This book is an excellent buy for anyone who knows little to nothing about fluorescence spectroscopy and someone who wants a great reference on the subject. I definitely haven't read all of this book, however what I have read has been very good. What's nice is that everything is referenced like a research article would be, so if there's anything that's not explained to the reader's satisfaction then they have the option of going straight to the original research article. So far, I have been impressed with the additional reading sections in the back of the chapter. What's also nice is the CD-ROM that comes along with the book. It contains all 1300 plus figures on a PDF file. This is very nice for someone who needs to do a lot of presentations. There's a lab at my university that specializes in fluorescence and this book has become the main reference for their lab. This means something considering how well recognized this professor is throughout the biophysical community.

Stellar text. Very thorough and easy to read. New version is in color, and has several new chapters. I'm very happy with the new edition

What's more to say? This is the authoritative, the definitive volume for luminescence experiments from theory to all of the most useful applications. It is readable, dense, useful and indispensable if you do fluorescence, lifetime measurements, energy transfer studies, etc., etc.