ABSTRACTWe report the optical properties of C60 determined from the variable angle ellipsometry and near normal incidence reflection / transmission (R.T) experiments, and of M6C60 from the R, T experiments. The measurements were performed on thin films (d∼1000 Å) of C60 and M6C60 deposited on both Si(100) and suprasil substrates. The onset for strong absorption across the HOMO-LUMO gap in CgQ is measured to be -2.3 eV, slightly larger than the gap values obtained from the x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and electron-energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) experiments. The observed peak positions in ε2(ω) for M6C60 and C60 compares well with the recent band structure calculations and suggests that the M6C60 compounds exhibit only a weak hybridization between the C60 and M states.