Richard Feynman in a famous talk given 45 years ago at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society on the perspectives of Physics anticipated, with extraordinary vision and in terms which can be substantially accepted even today, the enormous scientific and technological potentialities existing in the nanoworld and invited the fellow physicists to investigate the field.

As a matter of fact, Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies after a somehow slow start, have grown increasingly fast for the last 20 years with an exceptional impact upon understanding of Nature, development of Science and related applications.

Several new materials have been built and the possibility of tailoring their properties for particular purposes has opened unexpected perspectives in a multidisciplinary scenario.

Furthermore, economy has also been deeply involved in this effort as a consequence of the fact that a significant amount of money has been invested in new enterprises with the hope of duplicating the “boom” of microelectronics: a wrong hope, according to our guess, since nanotechnologies probably will prove to be really crucial in niche production.

Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies are developing at a very fast pace. It is then important to provide young and even expert scientists with the possibility of reviewing and updating some of the most significant features of nanostructures for a better understanding of their scientific foundations in order to put a firm basis for future developments.

The subject can be discussed from several points of view . We believe that “Nanostructures and Nanosensing Applications” provide a very effective approach as they require a strict interaction between Science and Technology leading to a high degree of cross fertilization.

Some of the most distinguished experts of the field have accepted to teach at the School. Their contribution to nanoscience has been very significant and widely recognized.

On their side, attending students had the unfrequent chance to listen to first-hand reports along with the consequent comments from the audience which made the Course particularly alive.

As usual in Varenna students had the possibility of approaching teachers informally for explanations and discussions. In addition, students were given some home work consisting in preparing short presentations to be given and discussed at extra time in front of the full audience including other students and teachers as well. Therefore all participants contributed to the really remarkable success of this Course.

We do hope that these proceedings will succeed in conveying not only the content but somehow the atmosphere of the lectures masterfully delivered and carefully attended in the historical Hall of Villa Monastero. For the participants they will be a precious memento and perhaps they will also be able to attract bright young scientists to such an important and up-to-date subject of study and research.

A. D'Amico and A. Paoletti