Laura Bush

December 01, 2019

A famous and admired professor of analytical chemistry, Gary M. Hieftje, is officially retiring. He has been a prominent faculty member at Indiana University for 50 years, and a beloved mentor, colleague, and friend to many. In this special feature, we take a look at his many contributions, and his broad impact on the field.

November 01, 2019

EDXRF offers potential advantages over ICP-OES for elemental analysis in agriculture. Karen Daly and Anna Fenelon of the Agriculture and Food Development Authority of Ireland spoke to us about their work investigating agricultural applications of this technique.

November 01, 2019

The accumulation of heavy and toxic elements in gallstones and kidney stones can be studied using WDXRF spectroscopy. Here, Vivek K. Singh of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University in India talks about his work using this technique to understand the formation and content of these stones in the body.

July 01, 2019

Javier Laserna has developed a technique for analyzing the composition of individual nanoparticles that is capable of detecting nanoparticles as the attogram level, by combining LIBS with optical trapping.

June 10, 2019

Significant progress is being made to harness the power of spectroscopy technique for medical research. An ongoing challenge, and area of development, in this effort, is to “see” more and more detail about biological activity, even within individual cells. Ji-Xin Cheng, a professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, is advancing such work, by developing techniques like midinfrared photothermal (MIP) imaging and Raman spectromicroscopy. Cheng is the 2019 winner of the Ellis R. Lippincott Award, which is awarded annually by the Optical Society, the Coblentz Society, and the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, to an individual who has made significant contributions to the field of vibrational spectroscopy. Here, Cheng speaks to us about those techniques.

April 01, 2019

Mohamad Sabsabi of the National Research Council of Canada explains the fundamentals of LIBS, its recent evolution, and its benefits and limitations, and offers advice for new users.

March 01, 2019

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has seen significant expanded adoption in recent years, particularly in industrial applications where it can provide important advantages over other techniques. Mohamad Sabsabi, of the National Research Council of Canada, has been leading programs to research and implement the use of LIBS in mining and energy applications.

January 01, 2019

Jorge Pisonero of the University of Oviedo studies the performance of the laser ablation process in laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, examining aspects such as the morphology of the craters created during sampling and the role of laser fluence. He also studies the effect of these factors in specific applications of LA-ICP-MS. He recently spoke to us about this work.

November 01, 2018

A new method enables quantification of pyrrolizidine alkaloids in a range of food matrices.

June 15, 2018

Dominic Hare, a senior research fellow and the head of the Atomic Pathology Laboratory at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Victoria, Australia, has won the 2019 Emerging Leader in Atomic Spectroscopy Award, which is presented by Spectroscopy magazine.