BOOKS AND SOFTWARE IN REVIEW Theodore E. Madey and John T. Yates Jr. (Eds.): Vibrational spectroscopy of molecules on surfaces Takeshi Hasegawa Published online: 15 October 2014 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 Book’ s topic This book is a part of the series “Methods of Surface Characterization,” and it is intended to describe the details of vibrational spectroscopic techniques for analysis of catalytic surfaces. On looking at the title, many readers would imagine that infrared (IR) and Raman spectroscopy are the main topics. When the contents are looked at, however, we have another impression that the book is written for chemists close to surface “physics.” This book is, in fact, a reproduction of an established classic book on surface physics that appeared in 1987, but it is still worth reading because it covers a wide range of vibrational spectroscopic techniques, except for the sum-frequency technique; i.e., IR absorption, Raman scatter- ing, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (IETS), incoherent inelastic neutron scattering, and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). Recently, a good guide to IETS has been difficult to find, and a systematic description of EELS in the framework of vibrational spectroscopy is also difficult to find. Both theoretical and experimental details are concisely summa- rized, which would be useful for a wide range of scientists, including not only physicists, but also chemists interested in surface chemistry. Contents This book consists of nine chapters. A common background for all the spectrometries discussed throughout this book is the normal modes of a molecule and a surface species. The first chapter, comprising 46 pages, describes the fundamentals of the normal modes in detail. This chapter is, however, a little bit unique in terms of chemistry because most of the descriptions are devoted to the surface adsorbate species, whose normal mode is strongly coupled with the phonon in a defined crystal lattice. Since the selection rule of each spec- trometry is described well in other books, the “surface” selec- tion rules are described here in detail instead. In particular, the theoretical treatments of the molecular symmetry and the site symmetry are described step-by-step when discussing EELS. Chapter 2 deals with the molecular excitation mechanism for vibrational spectroscopy. In a usual textbook on vibrational spectroscopy, dipole excitation by irradiation of light is theo- rized by using Schrödinger’ s equation with a perturbation theory. This approach is the basis on which the selection rules and factor group theory are developed. In the present book, however, EELS is chosen as the main target for elucidating dipole excitation, and a hybrid theory of a classical- mechanics-based quantum approach is used. Of note is that the first two chapters occupy 100 pages, which is more than one fifth of the book. Chapter 3 is devoted to IR spectroscopy for analysis of cata- lytic surfaces having a high surface area, i.e., particle surfaces. Therefore, the transmission, diffuse reflection, and Bibliography Vibrational spectroscopy of molecules on surfaces Series: Methods of Surface Characterization, Vol. 1 Theodore E. Madey and John T. Yates Jr. (Eds.) Springer ISBN: 978-1-4684-8761-9 Softcover, 468 pages, 1987, €85.55/£72.00 T. Hasegawa (*) Laboratory of Solution and Interface Chemistry, Division of Environmental Chemistry, Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Gokasho, Uji 611-0011, Kyoto-fu, Japan e-mail: htakeshi@scl.kyoto-u.ac.jp Anal Bioanal Chem (2014) 406:7413–7414 DOI 10.1007/s00216-014-8184-y