Modern Optical Spectroscopy: With Exercises and Examples from Biophysics and Biochemistry, Hardcover edition

The student edition of Modern Optical Spectroscopy includes a new set of exercises for each chapter. The exercises and problems generally emphasize basic points, and often include simpli?ed absorption or emission spectra or molecular orbitals that can be evaluated easily with the aid of a calculator or spreadsheet. Students who are adept at computer programming will ?nd it instructive to try to write algorithms that also could be applied to larger, more complicated sets of data. Spectraintroducedinsomeofthe problems forChaps.4and5areusedagain in later chapters to illustrate how quantities calculated from the spectra can be applied to topics such as resonance energy transfer and exciton interactions. Seattle, November, 2008 William W. Parson Preface This book began as lecture notes for a course on optical spectroscopy that I taught for graduate students in biochemistry, chemistry, and our interdisciplinary programs in molecular biophysics and biomolecular structure and design. I started expanding the notes partly to try to illuminate the stream of new experimental information on photosynthetic antennas and reaction centers, but mostly just for fun. I hope that readers will ?nd the results not only useful, but also as stimulating as I have.

This textbook offers clear explanations of the theory of optical spectroscopic phenomena and shows how these ideas are used in modern molecular and cellular biophysics and biochemistry. The topics covered include electronic and vibrational absorption, fluorescence, resonance energy transfer, exciton interactions, circular dichroism, coherence and dephasing, ultrafast pump-probe and photon-echo spectroscopy, single-molecule and fluorescence-correlation spectroscopy, Raman scattering, and multiphoton absorption.

The explanations are based on time-dependent quantum mechanics and are sufficiently thorough and detailed to be useful for both students and researchers. With the clear, thoroughly illustrated explanations that begin from first principles, the text will also be accessible to readers with little prior training in quantum mechanics. Extra details and highlights are featured in special boxes throughout the text. A helpful exercises section has been included to this new student edition.