11-6-98

EMINENT SCHOLAR IN CHEMISTRY TO HEAD NEW INSTITUTE

	COLUMBUS -- The Ohio State University Board of Trustees on 
Friday (11/6) approved establishment of a new Spectroscopy 
Institute that will combine the efforts of Ohio State researchers 
in disciplines such as physics, chemistry, astronomy and 
engineering.

	Terry A. Miller, Ohio Eminent Scholar of Experimental 
Physical Chemistry, will chair the new institute.

	Spectroscopy involves the examination of the wavelengths of 
light emitted or absorbed by an object, such as a star or a 
chemical compound, to study the physical qualities of the object 
itself.  For years, Ohio State has enjoyed an international 
reputation for strong fundamental research in spectroscopy 
because of work in chemistry and physics.  It also has been well-
known for applied spectroscopy because of work in engineering and 
astronomy.

	“People around the world knew of spectroscopy at Ohio State 
in terms of only one or the other,” Miller said.  “They didn’t 
know about the breadth and depth of work that was going on here. 
We thought that if we created an institute that encompassed all 
of us, we had a shot at being the No. 1 spectroscopy center in 
the world.

	“It’s also in the long-term societal interest to join 
fundamental and applied research, because then we’ll be better 
able to deal with challenges such as the detection of chemicals 
in the environment, or of chemical weapons components for treaty 
compliance,” Miller said.

	The institute will expose students to guest lecturers from 
outside academia as well as researchers from other disciplines at 
Ohio State.

	“By and large, the world is interdisciplinary now,” Miller 
said.  “Universities still have separate physics and chemistry 
departments and so on, but the problems that confront us as human 
beings no longer fit neatly into those pigeonholes. The institute 
will enable students to understand the bigger picture.”
	
	Miller is an award-winning researcher in the field of 
spectroscopy, and most recently was awarded the 1999 Herbert P. 
Broida Prize by the American Physical Society (APS).  Miller 
studies chemical intermediates, compounds that form in chemical 
reactions as intermediate steps between the starting material and 
the final product.  Intermediates are very short-lived and 
difficult to observe; Miller has developed a number of 
experimental techniques for observing the spectrum of light 
absorbed or emitted by these compounds as a means of identifying 
them.

	Chemical intermediates provide the key to complex reactions 
such as those involved in atmospheric chemistry or combustion. 
Moreover, they provide the basic ingredients for plasma etching, 
a new computer chip manufacturing technique that produces a 
thousand times less chemical waste than previous methods.

	As a Broida Prize winner, Miller will receive $5,000 from 
APS and a certificate to be presented at the 1999 APS Centennial 
Meeting in Atlanta in March.  He will give an invited talk at the 
meeting.

	In its prize notification letter, APS wrote that it is 
honoring Miller “for his far-ranging contributions to 
spectroscopy and chemical physics of diatomics and radicals, his 
development of methods for plasma diagnostics, and for his 
stewardship of the Ohio State Spectroscopy Conference.”  Miller 
has contributed scientific presentations to the conference for 
nearly 30 years, and has served as its chair since 1992.

	“This award is an honor, and I appreciate the respect my 
colleagues have shown me,” Miller said.  “I look forward in the 
next couple of years to developing new spectroscopic techniques 
in my lab and characterizing new intermediates -- and also to 
using those new techniques in real-world applications.” 

	Miller received his B.A. in 1965 from the University of 
Kansas and his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1968 from Cambridge 
University.  He worked at Bell Laboratories (now Lucent 
Technologies) in Murray Hill, N.J., before joining the Ohio State 
faculty in 1984.

	The Executive Board of the American Physical Society 
established the Broida Prize in 1979 as a memorial to Herbert P. 
Broida, late professor of physics at the University of 
California, Santa Barbara.  The prize recognizes and enhances 
outstanding experimental advancements in the fields of atomic and 
molecular spectroscopy or chemical physics.

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Contact: Terry A. Miller, (614) 292-2569; Miller.104@osu.edu
Written by Pam Frost, (614) 292-9475; Frost.18@osu.edu