In this dissertation, we studied on the origin and physical mechanisms leadingrnto Fano resonances and scattering of light in metal /dielectric composites. Thernproperties of composite materials can be tuned by dielectric permittivity of hostrnmatrix, volume fraction, geometry of the inclusion and distribution type. The theoreticalrnmodel consists of non-magnetic spherical and cylindrical nanoinclusionsrnwhich are embedded in non-absorbing host medium illuminated by plane wavesrnhaving uniform electric elds. The method employed treats the arrays of particlesrnwithin the framework of the conventional Rayleigh approximation. The electricrnpotential distribution of the composites having dielectric core, metal shell and hostrnmatrices are systematically calculated. As such metal/dielectric nanocompositesrnwith careful arrangement can also support Fano like resonances, the underlyingrnmechanisms including their origin are discussed. We nd that Fano-like resonancesrncan occur at the same input volume fraction of the metal coated (p) provided therndielectric function of active host medium ("00rnh) has negative values. Such Fano-likernresonance are induced by interaction between dipolar modes of the inner core, andrnmultipolar plasmon modes of the coated shell. This provides potential applicationrnin high performance surface-enhanced spectroscopy, electromagnetic inducedrntransparency, biosensing, plasmon line shaping, lasing and nonlinear switching. Inrnaddition, the experimental section of the study in the thesis presents the growthrnmechanism of ZnO with di erent morphologies. The e ect of dopant concentrationrnon the optical and magnetic properties has been studied. The role of precursor,rnreaction temperature and the origin of ferromagnetism in Al doped ZnO has beenrnreported. ZnO nanostructures prepared using sol-gel and chemical bath depositionrnare analyzed using di erent techniques. The nal product was analyzed usingrnsuch techniques as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), photoluminescence (PL)rnspectroscopy (steady and temperature dependent), Ultra-violet visible (UV-Vis)rnspectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Electron paramagneticrnresonance (EPR), X-ray di raction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy