Friday, March 29, 2013

A comprehensive review of the application of ESR to glasses in general and to oxide glasses in particular

Chapter Title: Electron Spin Resonance
Author: David L. Griscom
Book: Glass Science and Technology, Vol. 4B, Advances in Structural Analysis, D.R. Uhlmann and N.J. Kreidl, Eds. (Academic Press, New York, 1990), pp. 151- 251.

Surely this is the most comprehensive review article on this subject ever published ...that is when the title is expanded to read "Electron Spin Resonance OF PARAMAGNETIC CENTERS IN OXIDE GLASSES." One hundred and one pages, 57 figures, 250 references.  

In retrospect, this valuable reference work may have gone largely undiscovered because none of the capitalized words above would have been picked up in an internet search.

History: In the late 1980's I was invited to contribute a chapter proposed by the editors to be titled "Electron Spin Resonance" (which I never thought to make more specific) to be published in Volume 4B, Advances in Structural Analysis, of the Academic Press series "Glass Science and Technology." This was an honor that I couldn't turn down. However, it took an immense amount of time to create because (1) I had to accurately develop a fresh version of the mathematical basis of electron spin resonance (ESR) in CRYSTALS without error or plagiarism, (2) explain the methods by which equally meaningful information can be extracted from the ESR spectra in GLASSY materials (i.e., by means of computer line-shape simulations based in statistical distributions of the relevant ESR parameters), and (3) give proper credit for the important experimental ESR studies of oxide glasses published before 1990 by my competitors around the world. One of my Japanese competitors later told me that he and his colleagues had been thinking of writing such a treatise themselves, but because I had covered their work so fairly they no longer felt the need to do so.


This book appears to be out of print, but used copies can be purchased here for example:
http://www.gettextbooks.co.in/isbn/9780127067070
I have a small number of reprints that I am willing to mail out, while they last, to anyone who cannot find the original volume in their institutional library. If you would like one of these, please e-mail me at david_griscom@yahoo.com

Best wishes, Dave