Books: A physicist misses the chemistry mark - Analytical Chemistry

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Books

A physicist misses the chemistry mark

Ion Traps Pradip K. Ghosh Oxford University Press 198 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10016 1996, 326 pp., $95

If anyone wonders why Wolfgang Paul and Hans Dehmelt won the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work with ion traps, this book will provide them with an array of impressive applications of ion traps in the physics research world. As a part of the "International Series of Monographs on Physics", the book's physics perspective nicely complements the earlier book on quadrupole ion traps in Wiley's "Chemical Analysis" series (March, R E.; Hughes, R. J. Quadrupole Storage Mass Spectrometry; John Wiley & Sons: New York, NY, 1989). Unfortunately, the author, a physicist, didn't stop with just the applications of ion traps to physics research but tried also to cover the recent development by chemists of quadrupole ion traps as analytical mass spectrometers. The author's lack of expertise in chemical applications definitely shows in his presentation of this material. After a brief introductory chapter come probably the two most important chapters from a chemist's point of view, "Paul trap confinement" and "Penning trap confinement". In the chemistry world, these traps are commonly referred to as quadrupole ion traps and ion cyclotron resonance spectrometers, respectively, with the latter prob680 A

ably being even more commonly known as a Fourier transform mass spectrometer (FT-MS or FT-ICR). Unfortunately, after a detailed description of Penning traps and many examples of their use in the physics world, no mention is ever made of the use of these traps in the analytical chemistry world. Chapters 4 and 5 cover "Experimental techniques" and "Cooling the stored ions". Although the physics aspects of these chapters are interesting, chemists will find little that is applicable to their experiments. Chapters 6 and 7 cover some applications in atomic physics and the use of ion traps as atomic frequency standards. Again, these are interesting chapters as far as the use of ion traps in these areas is concerned, but very little is applicable to chemists. Chapter 8 covers collision studies and gets into the realm of chemical physics. The last chapter is entitled "Analytical mass spectrometry with the Paul trap". The title of this chapter clearly excludes FT-MS (Penning traps) from consideration, even though many applications using Penning traps are discussed in the rest of the book. Although it was somewhat disappointing that no mention is made of the powerful analytical capabilities of FT-MS, the coverage of the analytical Paul trap was much more disappointing. Much of the chapter could be considered a historical account of the commercial development of the Paul trap for analytical applications and, although this might be of interest to many people, the way in which die material is presented limits its use. A significant fraction of what is presented is obviously culled from patents. As anyone who has read a patent knows, it is more a legal document than a scientific document, and much information taken from patents may have little practical scientific use. This is the case more than once in this chapter. The discussion is often confusing, occasionally wrong, and for the most part what is discussed bears little resemblance to current practices.

Analytical Chemistry News & Features, November 1, 1996

In summary, this is a good book for the chemist who wants to be exposed to a variety of applications of ion traps in thefieldof physics. However, it is not recommended for those who want to learn about ion traps as analytical mass spectrometers. Reviewed by Gary L. Glish, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Principles for the specialist

Principles of Nonlinear Optical Spectroscopy Shaul Mukamel Oxford University Press 198 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10016 1995, 543 pp., $65

Written by the leading theoretician in the field of nonlinear optical spectroscopy in condensed-phase systems, this book is quite complete, detailed, and mathematically rich. Reading it is challenging because it is written for the specialist in theoretical condensed-phase nonlinear spectroscopy. It will be of little use to most analytical chemists. Nevertheless, the quality of the book is exceptionally high, and it lays the theoretical foundations for some of the most novel and exciting spectroscopic methods. Mukamel sets the lofty goal of providing a unified theoretical framework for all spectroscopic methods,