It is our pleasure to introduce a special issue of Analytical Letters comprising selected papers presented at the 10th International Conference on Processes in Isotopes and Molecules (PIM 2015) organized by the National Institute for Research and Development of Isotopic and Molecular Technologies in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, between September 23 and 25, 2015. PIM conferences are a forum for gathering scientists from academia, research institutes, and industry to discuss their latest research, exchange ideas, and present their latest work. This is done by attending lectures, oral presentations, or poster sessions on topics matching the research areas of the four research departments at the host institute. These main topics were stable isotopes—labeled compounds and analytical techniques, molecular and biomolecular systems, applied research and green technologies, and nanostructured materials—nanocomposites and hybrid materials.
The conference sessions were introduced by highly renowned scientists in each field: Trine Eggen from the Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research—BIOFORSK, Klepp, Norway and Etelka Tombácz from University of Szeged, Hungary, for Nanostructured Materials; Hermann Heumann from Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry, Silantes GmbH, Germany; Olivier Isnard from Université Grenoble Alpes Institute Néel of CNRS Grenoble, France; Liviu Trache from Horia Hulubei Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN-HH), Bucharest-Magurele, Romania; Cristiano Galbiati from Princeton University, Princeton NJ, USA; Federica Camin from Research and Innovation Center, Fondazione Edmund Mach, Trento, Italy; and Antonio Cobelo García from Institute of Marine Investigations (IIM-CSIC), Vigo, Spain, for Stable Isotopes; Coca Iordache from SC TeraCrystal SRL, Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Claudia Zlotea from Institute of Chemistry and Materials Paris-Est, Paris, France, for Applied Research and Green Technologies; Thomas A. Jung from Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland; and George E. Froudakis from University of Crete, Heraklion Crete, Greece, for molecular and biomolecular systems. In addition, a special session was dedicated to the International Year of Light. The invited scientists talked about laser applications (Hyung Taek Kim from Center for Relativistic Laser Science, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Advanced Photonics Research Institute, GIST, Gwangju, Korea; Werner Fuß from Max-Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Silantes GmbH, Germany; and Henryk Fiedorowicz from Institute of Optoelectronics Military University of Technology Warsaw, Poland) and the ELI project both in Romania (Calin Ur from Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Bucharest, Romania) and in Hungary (Katalin Varjú from ELI-ALPS, Szeged, Hungary). A total of 157 national and international scientists were present at the PIM 2015 conference. There were 40 oral presentations, including the lectures, and 119 poster presentations.
This volume comprises 12 research papers presented at the conference that target topics such as stable isotopes, applied research, and molecular systems. The readers will find, among others, interesting applications covering the determination of stable isotopes in orange juice (Dehelean et al.) and strawberries (Covaciu et al.), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry applications on coffee (Voica et al.), and river waters from Transylvania (Feher et al.). Acikbas et al. use atomic force microscopy and surface plasmon resonance to study a Langmuir–Blodgett thin-film deposition of a novel dicarboximide, Benchea et al. use solvatochromic studies to estimate the molecular parameters in excited states of two Sudan derivatives, and Zaharie et al. characterize an 18th-century wooden icon from Transylvania using FTIR spectroscopy, XRF, and mass spectrometry.
As Associate Editors of this special issue, we would like to express our gratitude to Editor-in-Chief of Analytical Letters, Dr. David Butcher, for his patience and hard work in helping us put together this volume, to Mrs. Lura Embrick for her kindness and cooperation, as well as to the publishers, Taylor and Francis.
Furthermore, we would like to thank the authors who submitted their manuscripts to Analytical Letters and the reviewers for their valuable comments that helped improved the quality of the manuscripts.
Guest editors for the special issue
Dr. Alexandra Fălămaş received her PhD in Physics from Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. For her thesis she used experimental vibrational spectroscopic techniques coupled with theoretical methods for investigating natural compounds and their medical effect in skin treatment applications. Since 2013 she is a scientific researcher at the National Institute for Research and Development of Isotopic and Molecular Technologies (INCDTIM), Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She is an Editor of the special issue volume of AIP Conference Proceedings for the Tenth International Conference on Processes in Isotopes and Molecules and an Associate Editor at Open Physics, De Gruyter Publishing. She is interested in science outreach and organizes a Science Cafe in Cluj-Napoca. Her current research interests include time-resolved molecular spectroscopy, micro-Raman spectroscopy, and fluorescence imaging techniques.
Dr. Ioan Turcu received his PhD in Physics from the Institute of Atomic Physics, Bucharest, Romania. Since 2005 he is the Head of Molecular and Biomolecular Physics Department of the National Institute for Research and Development of Isotopic and Molecular Technologies, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He is an active member of the National Research Council of Romania and President of the “Exact Sciences” Commission. He is an Editor of the special issue volume of AIP Conference Proceedings for the 10th International Conference on Processes in Isotopes and Molecules (PIM 2015). He has published 60 research articles in international refereed journals, and he is an active reviewer for about 15 international journals. His current research interests include self-assembly of supramolecular systems based on molecular recognition processes, fabrication and characterization of supramolecular structures with controlled architecture and functionality, molecular devices, and molecular electronics.