New materials produced for nanotechnology are designed with exlicit goal of obtaining optical materials with previously unavailable values of complex dielectric constant and refractive index. These properties are best measured with optical ellipsometry and related techniques. Similarly new nonlinear optical constants in nanostructures require laser-based techbiques such as Z-scan to be accurately controlled. Nanoengineered light waveguides support various optical propagation modes that require nanopositioning and both visible and near-IR visualization to monitor the mode intensity profile. Finally laser pump-probe equipment serves the goal of monitoring optical properties of the materials with sub-picosecond resolution in time domain.