John Reffner, ATR and Portable Spectrometers

In fifteen words or less, explain the significance of this contribution (Novel Aspect).: John Reffner's contribution to FT-IR microscopy, FT-IR sampling and portable spectroscopy.

Abstract Text:

The late 1970s and early 1980s were a period of very rapid innovation in FT-IR spectroscopy, in the instruments themselves, sampling accessories, algorithms and software.  And it was in the very early days of FT-IR microscopy that I first met John Reffner, albeit on different sides of the Digilab and Spectra-Tech schism, after Spectra-Tech developed the first FT-IR microscope (“IRMA”) on behalf of Digilab. ATR-based sampling was becoming more widespread, and so it was natural that it was incorporated into microscopes, but it also led to the possibility of a lab-portable, and eventually, field-portable FT-IR, developed by SensIR, another of the Spectra-Tech/Don Sting family of companies. The events of 9/11 and anthrax in the mail demonstrated the need for rapid molecular identification in the field, with SensIR’s product being further developed by Smiths Detection, and now by RedWave/908 Devices.  Sophisticated portable Raman and near-infrared spectrometers arrived in the mid-2000s, with the area growing very rapidly, requiring training courses, and John Reffner suggested that Pauline Leary and I work together to present them.  That led to our (with Brooke Kammrath) two-volume edited book on Portable Spectroscopy for which John wrote the Foreword, and to whom Pauline dedicated the work.