September 10, 2020

Spectroscopy Magazine is pleased to announce the addition of seven new members to its editorial advisory board.

September 07, 2020

Once again, the Eastern Analytical Symposium takes the spotlight November 16–19, providing analysts with the latest developments in areas ranging from biopharmaceutical analysis to materials characterization, from quality assessment to green analysis, and from environmental contaminant determination to antibody analysis, to name a few of the many areas covered.

September 01, 2020

August 07, 2020

By combining single-molecule biophysics and nanomaterial-polymer science, Markita Landry of the University of California, Berkeley has developed new tools for understanding biological systems. Using a combination of nanoparticles, imaging, and spectroscopy, her work has led to discovery of the aspects of neuromodulation in the brain, and for the delivery of genetic materials into plants for crop biotechnology.

August 01, 2020

Here we conduct an evaluation of significant operational parameters of IR microscopy for accurately determining the size of microplastics, with the overarching goal of outlining performance parameters that will help in the standardization of microplastics analysis.

August 01, 2020

Reliable quantitative FT-IR measurements require that the pathlength be known to within 1%. Pathlength estimations based on nominal spacer thickness are not reliable and require that the actual pathlength be measured for accurate data. We demonstrate how.

August 01, 2020

SERS offers many advantages. However, there are several issues to be aware of when trying to use SERS signals in analytical applications.

August 01, 2020

Measurements of the optical proper ties of a ceramic material, Z93, which is in current use on the International Space Station (ISS), reveal why this material is successful for thermal control in the ISS implementation, and also point to potential future material design improvements.

August 01, 2020

Spectroscopic ellipsometry, correlated with UV-vis-NIR spectroscopy, is used to determine the optical constants of thin films, such as in GexSb40-xSe60 chalcogenide glass.

August 01, 2020

We provide a scorecard of chemometric techniques used in spectroscopy. The tables and lists of reference sources given here provide an indispensable resource for anyone seeking guidance on understanding chemometric methods or choosing the most suitable approach for a given analysis problem.

August 01, 2020

Total reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) spectroscopy offers impressive performance, providing ultratrace elemental analysis with detection limits reaching the femtogram levels. Here, we provide a tutorial on the technique and the key steps that users should follow.

July 22, 2020

Kay Sowoidnich, PhD, is a research associate with Laser Sensors Lab at the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut, Leibniz-Institut für Höchstfrequenztechnik and one of the 2020 winners of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy William F. Meggers Award. His group have been able to demonstrate the potential of shifted-excitation Raman difference spectroscopy (SERDS) as an efficient tool for soil nutrient analysis.

July 20, 2020

On the occasion of Spectroscopy’s 35th birthday, I thought it would be an interesting opportunity to consider the amazing explosion in light sources for spectroscopy over the last few decades.

July 20, 2020

Lydia Neguse of The California Academy of Mathematics and Science School was selected as the winner of the Most Outstanding Female in Chemistry or Chemical Analysis award at the Fair

July 20, 2020

Raman imaging manufacturer WITec (Ulm, Germany) is expanding its headquarters building.

July 14, 2020

Raman imaging manufacturer WITec (Ulm, Germany) is expanding its headquarters building.

July 10, 2020

For more than 20 years, Heidi Goenaga-Infante, a science fellow and the leader of the inorganic analysis team at LGC, has been working on elemental and speciation analysis. Two recent areas of investigation include the analysis of trace metals in biological samples, and the study of nanomaterials. In these studies, Goenaga-Infante puts particular emphasis on metrology-advancing this work by developing validated reference methodologies. Goenaga-Infante is the 2020 recipient of the Lester W. Strock Award from Society of Applied Spectroscopy (SAS) and the SAS New England Regional Section, in recognition of her contributions to the field of analytical atomic spectrometry, and she recently spoke to us about her work. This interview is part of an ongoing series of interviews with the winners of awards that are presented at the SciX conference.

July 09, 2020

Spectroscopy and LCGC North America are proud to announce that Lydia Neguse of The California Academy of Mathematics and Science School in Carson, California, has been named the winner of the 2020 Most Outstanding Female in Chemistry or Chemical Analysis award at the Los Angeles County Science & Engineering Fair.

July 08, 2020

In 2009, a group of researchers conducted a study, using inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), to determine if heavy metal contaminants were present in a variety of pet foods . Results were compared to 2009 EPA Reference Dose (RfD) and World Health Organization (WHO) Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) levels, scaled to the sizes of pets. In the intervening decade, the U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act (FMSA) was enacted, and pet food became one of the targets of scrutiny. The team conducted a follow-up study in 2019, revisiting the pet food brands first analyzed in 2009 as well as new brands that have emerged since, to see if anything changed significantly in the intervening decade. The new study used updated cryogenic and microwave technologies for sample preparation before ICP-MS analysis. We spoke to the study’s lead author, Patricia Atkins, a Senior Application Scientist at Spex CertiPrep, about this investigation.

July 01, 2020

The increasing demand for secondary electrochemical storage devices requires well characterized and working battery systems.