SPECTROSCOPY AND POTENTIAL-ENERGY SURFACES

Potential energy surfaces are fundamental to chemistry, as they allow the prediction of the behaviour of atoms and molecules. This article gives an overview of methods of experimentally determining them using various forms of spectroscopy. Case studies are used to illustrate the information the various experiments can give, such as spectroscopy of weakly bound complexes (to determine intermolecular potentials) and simulated emission pumping (for information covering a wide range of geometrics).