This concise and carefully developed text offers a reader friendly guide to the basics of time-resolved spectroscopy with an emphasis on experimental implementation. The authors carefully explain and relate for the reader how measurements are connected to the core physical principles. They use the time-dependent wave packet as a building block for understanding quantum dynamics, progressively advancing to more complex topics. The topics are discussed in paired sections, one discussing the theory and the next presenting the related experimental methods. A wide range of readers including students and newcomers to the field will gain a clear and practical understanding of how to measure aspects of molecular dynamics such as wave packet motion, intramolecular vibrational relaxation, and electron-electron coupling, and how to describe such measurements mathematically.

At the time that the editors conceived the idea of trying to organize the meeting on which the contents of this volume are based and which became, in March 1980, a NATO Advanced Study Institute, the techniques of time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy, in both the nanosecond and sub-nanosecond time-domains, might reasonably have been said to be coming of age, both in their execution and in the analysis and interpretation of the results obtained. These techniques, then as now, comprised mainly a number of pulse methods using laser, flash-lamp or, most recently, synchrotron radiation. In addition, significant developments in the more classical phase approach had also rendered that method popular, utilizing either modulation of an otherwise continuous source or, again recently, the ultra-rapid pulse rate attainable with a synchrotron source. In general terms, time-resolved fluorescence studies are capable, under appropriate conditions, of supplying direct kinetic information on both photophysics and various aspects of molecular, macromolecular and supramolecular structure and dynamics. The nanosecond and sub-nanosecond time-scales directly probed render these techniques particularly appropriate in studying relaxation and fluctuation processes in macromolecules, particularly biopolymers (e. g. proteins, nucleic acids), in supramolecular assemblies such as cell membranes, and in a variety of relatively simpler model systems.

Resolving Spectral Mixtures: With Applications from Ultrafast Time-Resolved Spectroscopy to Superresolution Imaging offers a comprehensive look into the most important models and frameworks essential to resolving the spectral unmixing problem—from multivariate curve resolution and multi-way analysis to Bayesian positive source separation and nonlinear unmixing. Unravelling total spectral data into the contributions from individual unknown components with limited prior information is a complex problem that has attracted continuous interest for almost four decades. Spectral unmixing is a topic of interest in statistics, chemometrics, signal processing, and image analysis. For decades, researchers from these fields were often unaware of the work in other disciplines due to their different scientific and technical backgrounds and interest in different objects or samples. This led to the development of quite different approaches to solving the same problem. This multi-authored book will bridge the gap between disciplines with contributions from a number of well-known and strongly active chemometric and signal processing research groups. Among chemists, multivariate curve resolution methods are preferred to extract information about the nature, amount, and location in time (process) and space (imaging and microscopy) of chemical constituents in complex samples. In signal processing, assumptions are usually around statistical independence of the extracted components. However, the chapters include the complexity of the spectral data to be unmixed as well as dimensionality and size of the data sets. Advanced spectroscopy is the key thread linking the different chapters. Applications cover a large part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Time-resolution ranges from femtosecond to second in process spectroscopy and spatial resolution covers the submicronic to macroscopic scale in hyperspectral imaging. Demonstrates how and why data analysis, signal processing, and chemometrics are essential to the spectral unmixing problem Guides the reader through the fundamentals and details of the different methods Presents extensive plots, graphical representations, and illustrations to help readers understand the features of different techniques and to interpret results Bridges the gap between disciplines with contributions from a number of well-known and highly active chemometric and signal processing research groups

SPECTROSCOPY FOR MATERIALS CHARACTERIZATION Learn foundational and advanced spectroscopy techniques from leading researchers in physics, chemistry, surface science, and nanoscience In Spectroscopy for Materials Characterization, accomplished researcher Simonpietro Agnello delivers a practical and accessible compilation of various spectroscopy techniques taught and used to today. The book offers a wide-ranging approach taught by leading researchers working in physics, chemistry, surface science, and nanoscience. It is ideal for both new students and advanced researchers studying and working with spectroscopy. Topics such as confocal and two photon spectroscopy, as well as infrared absorption and Raman and micro-Raman spectroscopy, are discussed, as are thermally stimulated luminescence and spectroscopic studies of radiation effects on optical materials. Each chapter includes a basic introduction to the theory necessary to understand a specific technique, details about the characteristic instrumental features and apparatuses used, including tips for the appropriate arrangement of a typical experiment, and a reproducible case study that shows the discussed techniques used in a real laboratory. Readers will benefit from the inclusion of: Complete and practical case studies at the conclusion of each chapter to highlight the concepts and techniques discussed in the material Citations of additional resources ideal for further study A thorough introduction to the basic aspects of radiation matter interaction in the visible-ultraviolet range and the fundamentals of absorption and emission A rigorous exploration of time resolved spectroscopy at the nanosecond and femtosecond intervals Perfect for Master and Ph.D. students and researchers in physics, chemistry, engineering, and biology, Spectroscopy for Materials Characterization will also earn a place in the libraries of materials science researchers and students seeking a one-stop reference to basic and advanced spectroscopy techniques.

Laser ablation describes the interaction of intense optical fields with matter, in which atoms are selectively driven off by thermal or nonthermal mechanisms. The field of laser ablation physics is advancing so rapidly that its principal results are seen only in specialized journals and conferences. This is the first book that combines the most recent results in this rapidly advancing field with authoritative treatment of laser ablation and its applications, including the physics of high-power laser-matter interaction. Many practical applications exist, ranging from inertial confinement fusion to propulsion of aerostats for pollution monitoring to laser ignition of hypersonic engines to laser cleaning nanoscale contaminants in high-volume computer hard drive manufacture to direct observation of the electronic or dissociative states in atoms and molecules, to studying the properties of materials during 200kbar shocks developed in 200fs. Selecting topics which are representative of such a broad field is difficult. Laser Ablation and its Applications emphasizes the wide range of these topics rather than - as is so often the case in advanced science – focusing on one specialty or discipline. The book is divided into four sections: theory and modeling, ultrafast interactions, material processing and laser-matter interaction in novel regimes. The latter range from MALDI to ICF, SNOM’s and femtosecond nanosurgery to laser space propulsion. The book arose from the SPIE series of High Power Laser Ablation Symposia which began in 1998. It is intended for a graduate course in laser interactions with plasmas and materials, but it should be accessible to anyone with a graduate degree in physics or engineering. It is also intended as a major reference work to familiarize scientists just entering the field with laser ablation and its applications.

This concise and carefully developed text offers a reader friendly guide to the basics of time-resolved spectroscopy with an emphasis on experimental implementation. The authors carefully explain and relate for the reader how measurements are connected to the core physical principles. They use the time-dependent wave packet as a building block for understanding quantum dynamics, progressively advancing to more complex topics. The topics are discussed in paired sections, one discussing the theory and the next presenting the related experimental methods. A wide range of readers including students and newcomers to the field will gain a clear and practical understanding of how to measure aspects of molecular dynamics such as wave packet motion, intramolecular vibrational relaxation, and electron-electron coupling, and how to describe such measurements mathematically.

It is a great challenge in chemistry to clarify every detail of reaction processes. In older days chemists mixed starting materials in a flask and took the resul tants out of it after a while, leaving all the intermediate steps uncleared as a sort of black box. One had to be content with only changing temperature and pressure to accelerate or decelerate chemical reactions, and there was almost no hope of initiating new reactions. However, a number of new techniques and new methods have been introduced and have provided us with a clue to the examination of the black box of chemical reaction. Flash photolysis, which was invented in the 1950s, is such an example; this method has been combined with high-resolution electronic spectroscopy with photographic recording of the spectra to provide a large amount of precise and detailed data on transient molecules which occur as intermediates during the course of chemical reac tions. In 1960 a fundamentally new light source was devised, i. e. , the laser. When the present author and coworkers started high-resolution spectroscopic stud ies of transient molecules at a new research institute, the Institute for Molecu lar Science in Okazaki in 1975, the time was right to exploit this new light source and its microwave precursor in order to shed light on the black box.