This volume contains the abridged texts of the Keynote Lecture, the Plenary Lectures, and the two-page extended abstracts of invited oral and poster contributions presented at the Seventeeth International Conference on Raman Spectroscopy held in Beijing, China on August 20?25, 2000. It has become customary to publish the papers presented at this biennial conference in a bound volume. The contributions are grouped into the following sessions: Theoretical Advances in Raman Scattering: Vibrational Analysis/Molecular Dynamics and Structure/Band Shape/Band Intensity Raman Spectroscopy under Extreme Conditions (Pressure, Temperature, High Magnetic Field, etc.) Near-field/Advanced Techniques/Instrumentation and New Applications of Raman Spectroscopy Ultra-fast Phenomena/Time-resolved Raman Spectroscopy Surface Enhanced Scattering Non-linear Effect/CARS/RIKES Brillouin Scattering and Rayleigh Scattering X-rays and UV Raman Spectroscopy Phase Transitions Advanced Materials: Fullerene and Carbon Nanotube/Diamond/Super-hard Materials/Other New and Nanoscale Materials Semiconductors and Related Lower Dimensional Structures/2-D Electronic Gas Superconductors The Solid State: Non-crystalline Materials/Molecular Crystals/Others Surface/Interfacial Phenomena Applications of Raman Spectroscopy in Analytical Chemistry Inorganic/Organo-metallic/Organic Systems Macromolecules and Polymers Thin Films and Membranes Proteins/Peptides/Amino Acids Lipids/Bio-membranes/Nucleic Acids/Viruses Medical/Biomedical/Pharmaceutical Applications/Cells Industrial Process and Environmental Applications Applications in Minerals, Geology and Other Fields The book brings together a wide variety of fields of research in Raman Spectroscopy and as such provides an excellent snapshot of current Raman research activities.