World Scientific Series in 20th Century Chemistry - Vol. 3
FEMTOCHEMISTRY: ULTRAFAST DYNAMICS OF THE CHEMICAL BOND
(Volumes I & II)
by Ahmed H Zewail, Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Physics (CALTECH)
These two volumes on Femtochemistry present a timely contribution to a field central to the understanding of the dynamics of the chemical bond. This century has witnessed great strides in time and space resolutions, down to the atomic scale, providing chemists, biologists and physicists with unprecedented opportunities for seeing microscopic structures and dynamics. Femtochemistry is concerned with the time resolution of the most elementary motions of atoms during chemical change — bond breaking and bond making — on the femtosecond (10–15 second) time scale. As noted by Professor J Manz (Berlin) and Professor A W Castleman, Jr. (Penn State): femtochemistry is yielding exciting new discoveries from analysis to control of chemical reactions, with applications in many domains of chemistry and related fields, e.g., physical, organic and inorganic chemistry, surface science, molecular biology, ... etc. These two volumes cover the general concepts, techniques and applications of femtochemistry.
The introductory articles in Volume I provide reviews for both the non-experts as well as for experts in the field. This is followed by papers on the basic concepts. For applications, elementary reactions are studied first and then complex reactions. Volume I is complete with studies of solvation dynamics, non-reactive systems, ultrafast electron diffraction and the control of chemical reactions.
Volume II continues with reaction rates, the concept of elementary intramolecular vibrational-energy redistribution (IVR) and the phenomena of rotational coherence which has become a powerful tool for the determination of molecular structure via time resolution. The second volume ends with an extensive list of references, according to topics, based on work by Professor Zewail — who is known for his clarity and for his creative and systematic contributions — and his group at Caltech.
Readership: Chemists, biologists and physicists.
"This two-volume set provides an excellent source of information on the state of the art in femtosecond spectroscopy. It is an invaluable reference for experts in the field as well as those interested in mastering the experimental and theoretical aspects of ultrafast time-resolved spectroscopy."
Timothy A Rhodes
J Am Chem Soc, 1995 |
Vol. I | |
| 604pp |
Pub. date: Sept 1994 |
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Vol. II | |
| 372pp |
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