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Spectroscopy was born when Newton coined the term spectrum during his underground prism experiments. Later scientists such as Fraunhofer, Bunsen, and Kirchhoff showed that atoms possess distinct spectral fingerprints.

In the early 20th century, Planck, Bohr, Einstein, and Schrödinger established the quantum origin of discrete spectra, while mid-century advances by Bloch, Purcell, and Zavoisky extended spectroscopy to nuclear and electron spins through magnetic resonance.

With advances in laser technology (Maiman) and ultrafast methods that capture real-time molecular dynamics (Zewail), spectroscopy has now entered an era where coherent control of electronic and spin degrees of freedom is possible. This provides the foundation for the Mao Laboratory’s work at the intersection of laser spectroscopy, magnetic resonance, and quantum information science to probe and control spin-selective processes in photoexcited molecular systems.

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