Artyom I. Arzhanov

Moscow State Pedagogical University · Theoretical Physics Department

HBSM’2018 is organized by the Institute of Spectroscopy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Troitsk, Moscow) in collaboration with the Moscow State Pedagogical University. The conference venue will be in the heart of the ancient Russian city of Suzdal, known as one of the best places that illustratively and vividly tell about the centuries of eventful and dramatic history of this land and its peoples. Laser selective spectroscopy has a special meaning for Russia. In 1952 the staff of the Department of Theoretical Physics of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute under the direction of Prof. Eduard Shpol’sky was the first to observe the emergence of quasi-linear spectra of complex organic compounds in specially selected solvents at low cryogenic temperatures known as Shpolskii matrices. In 1972, a former student of Shpol’sky, Prof. Roman Personov and his colleagues at the Institute of Spectroscopy of the USSR Academy of Sciences have successfully performed a selective laser excitation of luminescence of organic molecules. Then, in 1974, researchers from Personov’s group and their colleagues from the Institute of Physics in Tartu, Estonia (USSR) conducted fundamental experiments on the persistent spectral hole burning. This work has formed the basis of laser site-selective spectroscopy of molecules, which has reached its culmination in single-molecule spectroscopy. HBSM was started in 1987 in Tallin, Estonia (USSR) as “All-Union Symposium on Modern Methods of Laser Spectroscopy of Molecules in Low-Temperature Media”. The next meetings were “Persistent Spectral Hole Burning: Science and Applications” in Monterey (California, USA, 1991) and “Spectral Hole Burning and Luminescence Line Narrowing: Science and Applications” in Ascona (Switzerland, 1992). The following meetings were organized as “International conferences on Hole-Burning and Related Spectroscopies (HBRS): Science and Applications” in Tokyo (Japan, 1994), Brainerd (Minnesota, USA, 1996) and Hourtin (France, 1999). In 2001, the Conference received its current name “Hole Burning, Single Molecule, and Related Spectroscopies (HBSM): Science and Applications”. The HBSM meetings were held in Taipei (Taiwan, 2001), Bozeman (Montana, USA, 2003), Aussois (France, 2006), Palm Cove (Australia, 2009), Tübingen (Germany, 2012) and Tartu (Estonia, 2015). This conference series has been exceptionally successful in bringing together participants from the leading research teams around the world to discuss the latest developments in the fundamental science and the applications of site-selective and single-molecule spectroscopy and related topics. We are looking forward to seeing you in Suzdal!