Ian Smith is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Chemistry at the University of Birmingham and a Senior Research Fellow in the Cambridge Department of Chemistry. His research interests encompass: (i) molecular reaction dynamics and laser photochemistry; (ii) state-to-state reactions and energy transfer; (iii) reaction kinetics and dynamics at ultra-low temperatures; (iv) kinetics and dynamics of radical-radical reactions; (v) the chemistry and photochemistry of atmospheric processes; and (vi) the chemistry of the interstellar medium.

Over the past decade, IWMS's group, along with the group of Bertrand Rowe at the University of Rennes I, have measured rate constants for a variety of elementary reactions and energy transfer processes in the gas-phase at temperatures down to ca. 10 K. This work led to the award of one of the first Descartes Prizes of the European Union in 2000 and this interest is pursued in an ongoing collaboration with Bertrand Rowe's group. These measurements have stimulated interest both among theoreticians and astrochemists - since they demonstrate that a richer chemistry is possible at the low temperatures of interstellar clouds than had previously been thought. This latter aspect of low temperature chemistry is pursued in modelling calculations carried out in collaboration with Professor Eric Herbst of Ohio State University.

Theoreticians have suggested that the increasing rate of these reactions as the temperature is lowered is related to the changing distribution of reagents over their rotational levels as the temperature is lowered. This explanation is currently being tested experimentally in Cambridge by IWMS and Dr Rouslan Olkhov. The aim of these experiments is to measure rate constants for a number of fast reactions of the CN radical as a function of the rotational states of the radical.

Selected Publications

Recent Reviews

I. W. M. Smith, The Temperature-Dependence of Elementary Reaction Rates: beyond Arrhenius: Chemical Society Reviews, published on the Web (2007)

I. W. M. Smith, Reactions at Very Low Temperatures: Gas Kinetics at a New Frontier, Angewandte Chemie, 45, 2842 2861 (2006)

I. W. M. Smith, Laboratory Studies of Atmospheric Reactions at Low Temperatures, Chemical Reviews, 103, 45494564 (2003).

I. W. M. Smith, Chemistry among the Stars: Reaction Kinetics at a New Frontier (RSC Liversidge Lecture), Chemical Society Reviews, 31, 137146 (2002).

I. W. M. Smith and A. R. Ravishankara, Role of Hydrogen-Bonded Intermediates in the Bimolecular Reactions of the Hydroxyl Radical, J. Phys. Chem. A (Feature Article), 106, 47984807 (2002).

Research Publications

H. Sabbah, L. Biennier, I. R. Sims, Y. Georgievskii, S. J. Klippenstein and Ian W. M. Smith, Understanding Reactivity at Very Low Temperatures: The Reactions of Oxygen atoms with Alkenes, Science, 317, 102-105 (2007).

R. V. Olkhov and I. W.M. Smith, Rate coefficients for reaction and for rotational energy transfer in collisions between CN in selected rotational levels (X2+, v = 2, N = 0, 1, 6, 10, 15 and 20) and C2H2, J. Chem. Phys., 126, 134314 (2007).

I. W M Smith, A. M Sage, N. M Donahue, E. Herbst and D. Quan, The Temperature-Dependence of Rapid Low Temperature Reactions: Experiment and Prediction, Faraday Discuss. 133, 137 156 (2006).

D. Carty, A. Goddard, I. R. Sims and I. W. M. Smith, Rotational energy transfer in collisions between CO(X1+, v = 2, J = 0, 1, 4 and 6) and He at temperatures from 294 to 15 K, J. Chem. Phys., 121, 46714683 (2004).

I. W. M. Smith, E. Herbst and Qiang Chang, Rapid Neutral-Neutral Reactions at Low Temperatures: a New Network and First Results for TMC-1 and L134N, Mon. Not. Roy. Astronom. Soc., 350, 323330 (2004).

P. W. Barnes, I. R. Sims and I. W. M. Smith, Relaxation of H2O from its (|04>) Vibrational State in Collisions with H2O, Ar, H2, N2 and O2, J. Chem. Phys., 120, 55925600 (2004).

K. M. Hickson, C. M. Sadowski and I. W. M. Smith, Rate coefficients for removal of CN(X2+,  = 2) from selected rotational levels Ni = 0 to 57 in collisions with N2 and C2H2, Chem. Phys. Letters, 372/3-4, 443450 (2003).

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