ELECTRON-SPECTROSCOPY OF ATOMS AND MOLECULES USING SYNCHROTRON-RADIATION

It is a pleasure to have this opportunity to acknowledge the tremendou s contribution made by W.C. Price to the technique of electron spectro scopy and its subsequent development in the UK, through his own work a nd the encouragement and guidance he gave to others just beginning exp eriments in this new field. As an undergraduate in his department at K ing's College, London during the early 1960s, I was able to appreciate his unique understanding of molecular physics, and was to learn in la ter years just how far-sighted he was in the interpretation of the exp eriments which followed as the use of the method expanded. It is now a well-established technique, and when combined with the intense contin uum source in the vacuum ultraviolet and X-ray regions provided by syn chrotron radiation, has resulted in a powerful means of probing electr on correlations in atoms and molecules, as well as helping to identify complex structure in the photoionisation continuum.