Festschrift Ivan Powis: 

Advances in Molecular Photoelectron Spectroscopy: Fundamentals & Applications

About the Festschrift and Themed Issue of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics

The year 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the first experimental verification of a novel chiroptical phenomenon in the angular scattering of electrons upon photoionization of a chiral molecule by VUV circularly polarized synchrotron radiation. This experimental proof appeared 25 years after the first phenomenological prediction by Ritchie and Cherepkov but just one year after Ivan Powis published his first two seminal theoretical papers on this novel phenomenon. This experiment confirmed the predictions of detailed scattering calculations that the electron asymmetry, later called PhotoElectron Circular Dichroism (PECD), was large and, as shown in subsequent experiments, could reach up to several tens of percent of the total cross section, indicating that it is exquisitely suited to the study of dilute chiral matter. The full editorial of the Festschrift of PCCP can be downloaded here (Editorial pdf).

This themed collection of 47 papers is in honour of Professor Ivan Powis’ recent emeritus status and 69th birthday.

Ivan Powis has been a key player in many developments of photoelectron spectroscopy. He is particularly recognised as a pioneer of photoelectron circular dichroism (PECD), a field he triggered via two seminal theoretical papers published in 2000. Ivan has remained at the forefront of this growing field over the past two decades, and this Festschrift issue celebrates his great contributions and achievements. This themed collection of PCCP will highlight both fundamental and applied aspects of molecular photoionization processes, including photodetachment and a broad range of targets (from diatomics to liquid jets, including of course chiral systems), in all regimes of light-matter interaction.

Guest Edited by: Maurice Janssen (MassSpecpecD BV, the Netherlands), Laurent Nahon (Soleil Synchrotron, France), Olga Smirnova (Max Born Institute and Technical University Berlin, Germany) and Albert Stolow (University of Ottawa and NRC, Canada).

The Festschrift and 47 papers can be downloaded at this PCCP weblink.

Prof. Ivan Powis has been a long time collaborator of our company on laser-based chiral discrimination by PECD, see more details here at our company page.