Molecules and Radiation - 2nd Edition: An Introduction to Modern Molecular Spectroscopy

An enormous amount of research on lasers and their applications in spectroscopy has been done over the decade since the first edition of this text,was published in 1974. The last five of the book's 14 chapters have been completely rewritten for this new edition to reflect these developments. They take up molecular beams, masers, lasers, optical resonance spectroscopy, coherent transient spectroscopy, multiple-photon spectroscopy, and "spectroscopy beyond molecular constants."

What has not changed in this edition is the breadth of its coverage, one of the features that led to its wide use as a graduate-level text. It is still the only available text that presents from a consistent theoretical perspective an introduction both to classical atomic and molecular spectroscopy and to the spectroscopic advances made possible by modern optics, particularly laserbased methods.

Although the author has taken care not to lose sight of the lore and tradition of classical spectroscopy, his underlying interest is in molecular dynamics and the interaction of radiation and matter, in addition to the tabulation and assignment of spectral lines and their interpretation in terms of molecular structure.

The first nine chapters deal mainly with classical topics. The presentations have been updated and corrected, and a more consistent notation is employed in this edition. After a review of the quantum-mechanical background and atomic spectra, the book discusses the rotational, vibrational, and electronic spectra of diatomic molecules. A brief presentation of rudimentary group theory then leads to a consideration of the spectra of polyatomic molecules.

Jeffrey I. Steinfeld is Professor of Chemistry at MIT.