The post-industrial societies'' demand for more information processing and communication is a challenge to modern technology.This workshop is the first forum in Italy fully devoted to the advanced materials for opto-electronic and photonic device applications.The volume contains selected papers presented at the workshop and provide an updated overview by leading Italian public and private research groups on the state-of-the-art developments in crystal growth, tailoring and characterization of a large class of materials, namely semiconductors, glasses, polymers and organic molecules.Internationally recognized scientists on materials science have contributed to the workshop and their contributions have been reported in this volume.