The Infrared & Raman Discussion Group

Specialist Spectroscopic Groups

The Infrared & Raman Discussion Group. http://www.irdg.org/

The Coblentz Society. http://www.coblentz.org/

Many other specialist spectroscopy groups exist and are linked to learned societies or instrumental user groups. The IRDG and Coblentz are independent and reflect the character of the UK and North American communities for vibrational spectroscopy respectively. The Web page of the former has existed for four years and provides an Internet and E-mail information and registration service for forthcoming meetings. The Coblentz Society provides a number of services to its members and has published numerous Newsletters since its formation in 1954. It normally has an AGM at the annual Pittcon Meeting at which major award presentations and addresses are given. It sponsors a number of other meetings including the annual autumn conference of the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopic Societies (FACSS).

Spectroscopic Instrument Manufacturers

Andor  http://www.andor-tech.com/

Avalon http://www.avaloninst.com/

Bio-rad http://www.bio-rad.com/

Bruker http://www.bruker.com/

Clairet http://www.clairet..co.uk/

HORIBA Jobin Yvon  http://www.jobinyvon.co.uk/

Jasco http://www.jasco.co.uk/ftir.asp

Malvern Instruments http://www.malvern.co.uk/LabEng/products/iwtm/chemical_imaging.htm

Perkin Elmer http://instruments.perkinelmer.com/index.asp

Renishaw http://www.renishaw.com/

Spectrolab http://www.spectrolab.co.uk

Thermo Scientific http://www.thermo.com/

All major instrument manufacturers provide a range of commercial and technical information on their products and provide support to their user communities. The Web pages listed include companies supplying infrared and Raman spectrometers. These companies supply many other type instruments and many other companies market many different spectrometers world-wide. The various services and products are identified by following the links of the appropriate web site 

The Royal Society of Chemistry http://www.rsc.org/

The American Chemical Society http://www.acs.org/

The Optical Society of America http://www.osa.org/

The Society for Applied Spectroscopy http://s-a-s.org/

Many national learned societies and professional bodies exist including the prestige academies such as The Royal Society which supports science generally at the highest level. The Royal Society of Chemistry web pages provide information on products, services and activities including links to University Departments providing courses and research in chemistry, physics and other science in the UK. The American Chemical Society, the Optical Society of America and the Society for Applied Spectroscopy are also active in terms of meetings, specialist sub-groups and the publication of books and journals associated with spectroscopy. Many journals are published both as normal text copy and also in on-line electronic form requiring institutional paid subscription. The ACS supports the Chemical Abstract Service with some 14 million abstracts and covers some 18 million substances. The Society for Applied Spectroscopy supports the journal Applied Spectroscopy which can also be purchased on-line in electronic form

Electronic Only Free or Paid Spectroscopic Related Journals.

The Internet Journal of Vibrational Spectroscopy http://www.ijvs.com/

The Internet Journal of Vibrational Spectroscopy has provided 4 volumes to-date since 1998 together with a range of information, from simple sample preparation to new instruments. The journal, available free but currently closed to new items, is hosted by John Wiley and Sons Ltd.

PhysChemComm http://www.rsc.org/journals/current/e-only/e-only.htm

  The RSC has published PhysChemComm as an electronic Internet based journal since 1998 and is available by paid subscription.

Free Spectroscopic Related Publications

Spectroscopy Europe. http://www.spectroscopyeurope.com/

 Spectroscopy Europe carries topical articles and, as a controlled subscription periodical, has production costs covered by advertisers. The web page includes opportunity to recall information from previous issues and serves to avoid the necessity to otherwise store and index previous issues. This does not mean it may be more lightly thrown away than other candidates for the skip!

Elsevier http://www.elsevier.com/

Wiley-VCH http://www.interscience.wiley.com/

These, and other publishers with listed web sites produce many books of interest to spectroscopists together with Journals such as Spectrochimica Acta, Journal of Molecular Structure, Vibrational Spectroscopy and Journal of Raman Spectroscopy. Much information on books and journals are retrievable from the publishers’ Web site including full reference details of publications which have appeared or are shortly to appear.

Spectroscopic Instrument Accessories

Clairet http://www.clairet.co.uk/

Kromatek  http://www.kromatek.co.uk/

Pike http://www.kromatek.co.uk/

Specac http://www.specac.co.uk/

Initially only instrument companies provided accessories for their spectrometers. The development of companies such as RIIC in the UK in the 1950’s and later led to the paralel provision and growth in non-instrument specific sample mounting accessories with high sensitivity and performance. Accessories are often provided by smaller companies often driven initially by single user with specialist expertise and modest work-shop facilities.

Adept Scientific http://www.adeptscience.co.uk/

Galactic http://www.galactic.com/

Oxford Molecular  http://www.oxmol.co.uk/

CambridgeSoft http://www.camsoft.com/

Essential FTIR Software http://www.essentialFTIR.com/

Software development has followed the same pattern as sample accessory development with the growth of universal applicable software in parallel with instrumental software for carrying out a range of spectroscopic manipulations and library searches for spectra which may be imported to a PC or other computer using a universal file transfer protocol such as JCAMP.DX There have been a number of movements to link spectroscopic software with molecular modelling software in order to relate spectral and molecular features. 

Fiveash Data Management Inc http://www.fdmspectra.com/

_{FTIR Raman Search http://www.ftirsearch.com}

GAML http://www.gaml.org/

Nicodom Ltd http://www.ir-spectra.com

NIST http://www.webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/

Sadtler http://www.sadtler.com/

Thermo Electron Corporation http://www.thermo.com/

Sadtler and NIST are, respectively, commercial and US Government based organisations which provide collections of reference spectra. Unknown spectra may be searched against these collections subject to a subscription charge. NIST also permits searching by compound name or structure and from a large database and displays infrared gas spectra and other spectral and physical properties. The infrared gas spectra may be manipulated by scale expansion and other parameter changes. Thermo Electron Corporation are also introducing spectral data and libraries

Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/

Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CLRC) http://www.clrc.ac.uk/

Spallation Neutron Source for Molecular Spectroscopy http://www.isis.rl.ac.uk/

Daresbury 4GLS http://www.4gls.ac.uk

EPSRC and the CLRC are representative of many UK and other national facilities. The former allows identification of research support of individual scientist by region, university, or subject area. The later provides facilities such as the Spallation Neutron Source for which the Web site lists application to molecular spectroscopy. 

Members of the IRDG are invited to contact members of the 4GLS project group to for assistance/discussion.Andrea RussellInfrared Contact for the 4GLS projectDepartment of ChemistryUniversity of Southampton. a.e.russell@soton.ac.uk

Columbus EPSRC Computer Service. http://www.hpc.rl.ac.uk/columbus/tech.htm

UK Computational Chemistry Working Party (UK CCWP) http://www.ccwp.ac.uk/

Gaussian Inc http://www.gaussian.com/

The UK CCWP is an advisory body to the UK Computational Chemistry Facility set up by a grant from the EPSRC. Columbus computational hardware described is maintained by the CLRC and provides support for a range of software of which the most popular is the Gaussian package The software described is idealy suited to scalar type computations which are prevalent in quantum chemistry type software. The Web sites associated with these facilities include information on a wide range of computational opportunities and software relevant to spectroscopy.

Robert Lancashire UWI Mona http://wwwchem.uwimona.edu.jm.1104/software.jcampdx.htm

Paul Lahti, University of Massachusetts http://www.chem.umass.edu/-nermmw/Spectra/

Bob McDonald, JCAMP http://www.members.aol.com/rmcdjcamp/

Fernando Agullo-Rueda http://www.icmm.csic.es/Fagullo/Fagullo.htm

John Chalmers VSconsulting http://www.infraredandraman.com/

Peter de Peinder VibSpec http://www.vibspec.com/

Dr Robert Lancashire and Dr Paul Lahti have collaborated on a range of educationally valuable Web based demonstrations including interpreting spectra by relating bands to animated molecular vibrations on web sites based on their respective university campuses. These may require Unzip and specialised Plug-ins described on their Web pages. Bob McDonald has also developed a personal web site following his pioneering work co-authored with Paul Wilks on the JCAMP.DX file transfer protocol. The Web page describes opportunities to extend the protocol to other spectroscopic techniques co-ordinated by an IUPAC working party chaired by Dr Tony Davies. Warren Vidrine has also provided a group of links on IR optical materials tables and infrared correlation charts.

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