Circular dichroism (CD) spectra of chiral bare and thiol-passivated gold nanoclusters have been calculated within the dipole approximation. The calculated CD spectra show features that allow us to distinguish between clusters with different indexes of chirality. The main factor responsible of the differences in the CD lineshapes is the distribution of interatomic distances that characterize the chiral cluster geometry. These results provide theoretical support for the quantification of chirality and its measurement, using the CD lineshapes of chiral metal nanoclusters.

The shape and alignment of silver nanoparticles embedded in a glass matrix is controlled using silicon ion irradiation. Symmetric silver nanoparticles are transformed into anisotropic particles whose larger axis is along the ion beam. Upon irradiation, the surface plasmon resonance of symmetric particles splits into two resonances whose separation depends on the fluence of the ion irradiation. Simulations of the optical absorbance show that the anisotropy is caused by the deformation and alignment of the nanoparticles, and that both properties are controlled with the irradiation fluence. *

The circular dichroism (CD) spectra of single-wall carbon nanotubes are calculated using a dipole approximation. The calculated CD spectra show features that allow us to distinguish between nanotubes with different angles of chirality, and diameters. These results provide theoretical support for the quantification of chirality and its measurement, using the CD lineshapes of chiral nanotubes.It is expected that this information would be useful to motivate further experimental studies.

We developed a spectral formalism to study the effective polarizability of a spheroidal particle lying over a substrate, including multipolar effects. With the help of the spectral representation, we can discuss the optical response in terms of the excitation of the multipolar modes of the system. As an example of applications, we provide a spectral representation of the differential-reflectance spectra and we perform calculations for specific systems.