Soon after the discovery of the „Recoilless Nuclear Resonance Fluorescence” by R. Mössbauer I had the chance in the mid sixties to collaborate as a postdoctoral fellow with physicists at Brookhaven National Laboratory (USA) on possible applications of the Mössbauer effect in solid state research. This formed the basis of my Habilitation Thesis „Applications of the Mössbauer Effect in Chemistry” presented at the University of Darmstadt in 1970. Mössbauer spectroscopy was from now on our main technique in stud-ying electronic and molecular structure and magnetic problems in solid state chemistry and physics. However, after moving to the University of Mainz in 1975 (Full Professor-ship in Inorganic chemistry) we have installed other physical techniques like magnetic susceptibility measurements, optical and vibrational (IR, FAR-IR, Raman) spectroscopy, diffraction methods, and calorimetry, all equipped with low temperature facilities down to the liquid helium range. At the same time we have developed further Mössbauer spectro-sopy, e.g. regarding surface scattering and time-integral and time-differential emission spectroscopy, spectroscopy with short-lived Mössbauer sources (e.g. 61Ni with only 99 minutes halflife). The research group (altogether ca. 20-25 scientific persons on average during the last 30 years) always comprised chemists and physicists, which has enabled us to span the work from the synthesis of the material, characterisation by physical methods, and interpretation using existing theories and creating new models. Our work during the past four decades may be classified grossly as follows:
- Thermal, light- and pressure-induced spin transition phenomena in (mainly) iron(II) coordination compounds.
- Physical and chemical after-effects of nuclear decay in inorganic solids.
- Applications of Mössbauer spectroscopy to different problems of solid state research.
- Instrumental development in Mössbauer spectroscopy and other physical techniques.
In the following the most important research results obtained in these sections will be summarized. The numbers given by /.../ refer to those enumerated in the publication list.
<!--
Soon after the discovery of the „Recoilless Nuclear Resonance Fluorescence” by R. Mössbauer I had the chance in the mid sixties to collaborate as a postdoctoral fellow with physicists at Brookhaven National Laboratory (USA) on possible applications of the Mössbauer effect in solid state research. This formed the basis of my Habilitation Thesis „Applications of the Mössbauer Effect in Chemistry” presented at the University of Darmstadt in 1970. Mössbauer spectroscopy was from now on our main technique in studying electronic and molecular structure and magnetic problems in solid state chemistry and physics. However, after moving to the University of Mainz in 1975 (Full Professorship in Inorganic chemistry) we have installed other physical techniques like magnetic susceptibility measurements, optical and vibrational (IR, FAR-IR, Raman) spectroscopy, diffraction methods, and calorimetry, all equipped with low temperature facilities down to the liquid helium range. At the same time we have developed further Mössbauer spec-trosopy, e.g. regarding surface scattering and time-integral and time-differential emission spectroscopy, spectroscopy with short-lived Mössbauer sources (e.g. 61Ni with only 99 minutes halflife). The research group (altogether ca. 20-25 scientific persons on average during the last 30 years) always comprised chemists and physicists, which has enabled us to span the work from the synthesis of the material, characterisation by physical methods, and interpretation using existing theories and creating new models. Our work during the past four decades may be classified grossly as follows:
- Thermal, light- and pressure-induced spin transition phenomena in (mainly) iron(II) co-ordination compounds.
- Physical and chemical after-effects of nuclear decay in inorganic solids.
- Applications of Mössbauer spectroscopy to different problems of solid state research.
- Instrumental development in Mössbauer spectroscopy and other physical techniques.
In the following the most important research results obtained in these sections will be summarized. The numbers given by /.../ refer to those enumerated in the publication list.
-->