The properties of chemical, pharmaceutical, and biological compounds depend mainly on their molecular structure, whose determination is of fundamental interest. This book examines and systematizes more than three hundred striking structural determinations of free molecules. Featuring high-quality structural data and presenting modern techniques of their determinations by quantum chemistry, high-resolution spectroscopy and electron diffraction, the book is an indispensable resource for graduate students and professional scientists specializing in structural chemistry and other related fields.

Presents comprehensive structural data for uniquely complex molecular systems Includes critical analyses of the latest advances in the structural chemistry of free molecules Offers the high quality of modern structural determinations by electron diffraction and high-resolution spectroscopy

Autorentext

Natalja Vogt studied chemistry in Ivanovo University of Chemical Technology and physics in Ivanovo State University (Russia). She received her PhD in physical chemistry in 1986 in Prof. Georgiy V. Girichev s group, afterward (from 1989 to 1990) carrying out postdoctoral research in Prof. Istvan Hargittai s group at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. Between 1991 and 2022 she was senior scientist at the University of Ulm. Her habilitation work on the topic Equilibrium structure and its determination for biomolecules was finished in the electron diffraction laboratory at the Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2012, and between 2013 and 2021 she was professor of the Chemistry department at this university.
Natalja Vogt is one of the editors and/or authors of the eleven Landolt-Börnstein volumes Structure Data of Free Polyatomic Molecules (Group II: Molecules and Radicals; V.23, V.25(A-D), V.28(A-D), V.30(A, B)) together with Prof. Kozo Kuchitsu, Prof. Mitsutoshi Tanimoto, Prof. Eizi Hirota, and others. She published about 110 peer-reviewed scientific papers and 17 books.

Jean Demaison studied chemical engineering at the École Nationale Supérieure des Industries Chimiques in Nancy, France, from 1964 to 1967. After being awarded his diploma in October of 1967, he obtained a position at the French Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) as Researcher in the theoretical chemistry laboratory at the University of Nancy. He received his Ph.D. in 1972, in this laboratory on the topic Internal rotation of two top molecules in rotational spectroscopy under the direction of Prof. Jean Barriol, in conjunction with research he carried out in Freiburg, Germany, under the direction of Prof. Heinz Dieter Rudolph. He was invited professor at the University of Ulm from February 1974 to June 1975.
He was promoted Research Director at CNRS in 1985. From 2001 to 2004, he was Guest Professor at the University of Louvain-La-Neuve, and from 2006 to 2008, at the Free University of Brussels. He was also Visiting Scientist in several laboratories (Austin, Kiel, Mühlheim, Valladolid). Jean Demaison published more than 370 papers and 22 books. He received the Sixth International Barbara Mez-Starck Prize for outstanding contribution in the field of structural chemistry, Austin, March 2008.

Inhalt
Introduction.- Quantum Chemical Methods.- Rovibrational Spectroscopy and Structure of Diatomic Molecules.- Rotational Constants of a Polyatomic Molecule.- Equilibrium Structures of Semirigid Molecules from the Rotational Constants.- Structure of Nonrigid Molecules by Spectroscopic Methods.- Equilibrium Molecular Structure as Determined by Gas-phase Electron Diffraction.- Other Methods, Mainly for the XH bond (X = C, N, O).- Database with Equilibrium Structures of Free Molecules.