Research Advances in Rotational Spectroscopy: From Structures to Large Amplitude Motions of Molecules

Dear Colleagues,

Nearly a century has passed since the first rotational spectrum of ammonia was recorded, revealing the inversion tunneling motion of the nitrogen atom through the plane spanned by the three hydrogen atoms. This landmark experiment marked the beginning of rotational spectroscopy as a powerful tool for probing molecular structure and internal dynamics. Throughout its history, the field has undergone remarkable developments, establishing it as a structure-specific technique of exceptional precision.

Rotational spectroscopy has always been known to be linked to molecular structure because the most important parameters it delivers, the rotational constants, reflect the mass distribution of atoms within a molecule, from which accurate bond lengths and angles can be routinely determined. Today, rotational spectroscopy offers much more than just molecular structure. It addresses various fundamental and applied problems in molecular physics, physical chemistry, and related fields such as astrophysics, atmospheric sciences, or biochemistry. It answers challenging questions on conformational landscapes, the nature of chemical bonding, the electronic environment of a given nucleus, and a variety of large amplitude motions (LAMs) such as internal rotation, inversion tunneling, and ring puckering. A comprehensive description of these LAMs often requires access to excited states, which remains an ongoing experimental challenge, particularly for techniques employing supersonic expansion, where cooling conditions generally limit observations to the vibrational ground state.

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Molecules, I am pleased to invite you to contribute to the Special Issue “Research Advances in Rotational Spectroscopy: From Structure to Large Amplitude
Motions of Molecules”. This Special Issue aims to celebrate both 30 years of Molecules and a century of rotational spectroscopic investigations of molecules. Original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but not limited to) the following:

• Rotational spectroscopy to characterize molecular structure (conformers and isomers), large amplitude motions (ground and/or excited states), hyperfine structure, non-covalent interactions, complexes, atmospherically and astrophysically relevant species
• Rotational structure determination
• Synergy between rotational spectroscopic experiments and theory
• Instrument and technique demonstration for rotational spectroscopy

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Ha Vinh Lam Nguyen
Guest Editor

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