Nano Meets Spectroscopy

Abstract

The multidisciplinary two-day Nano Meets Spectroscopy (NMS) event was held at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), Teddington, UK, in September 2011. The event was planned from the outset to be at the interface of several areas—in particular, spectroscopy and nanoscience, and to bring together topics and people with different approaches to achieving common goals in biomolecular science. Hence the meeting cut across traditional boundaries and brought together researchers using diverse techniques, particularly fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy. Despite engaging common problems, these techniques are frequently seen as mutually exclusive with the two communities rarely interacting at conferences. The meeting was widely seen to have lived up to its billing in good measure. It attracted the maximum capacity of ~120 participants, including 22 distinguished speakers (9 from outside the UK), over 50 posters and a vibrant corporate exhibition comprising 10 leading instrument companies and IOP Publishing. The organizers were Professor David Birch (Chair), Dr Karen Faulds and Professor Duncan Graham of the University of Strathclyde, Professor Cait MacPhee of the University of Edinburgh and Dr Alex Knight of NPL. The event was sponsored by the European Science Foundation, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry, NPL and the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance. The full programme and abstracts are available at http://sensor.phys.strath.ac.uk/nms/program.php. The programme was quite ambitious in terms of the breadth and depth of scope. The interdisciplinary and synergistic concept of 'X meets Y' played well, cross-fertilization between different fields often being a source of inspiration and progress. Fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy provided the core, but the meeting had little repetition and also attracted contributions on more specialist techniques such as CARS, super-resolution, single molecule and chiral methods. In terms of application the event bridged as far as medical application of nanotechnologies. It could have turned out that such a hotchpotch produced an incoherent event that lacked direction and focus, but in truth, as the feedback showed, the delegates revelled in the diversity and depth of quality. Excellent speakers, the common application to biomolecules and common language of spectroscopy were probably the reasons why things worked out so well. I am delighted to bring together in this special feature in Measurement Science and Technology a selection of contributions from the meeting and I thank all the authors for their excellent contributions. Included are papers on nanoparticles, plasmonics, sensing and imaging. This special feature, and indeed similar meetings in the future, will undoubtedly help sustain the 'nanomeeters' message of NMS.