Research relevant

It is the big questions EPR spectroscopy can contribute its share to, not necessarily the routine day-to-day analysis in the chemistry department. Hence, EPR spectroscopy and the tools surrounding it need to provide an open platform that can be extended and adjusted in new and exciting ways to address the hot questions of tomorrow, not yesterday.

A key aspect of science is to ask new questions and to go one step beyond what we know already. While usually, we will combine tools already available for this, these tools need to be flexible and modular enough to be used in ways not necessarily foreseen.

Applied to EPR spectroscopy, this means that we need to have robust and proven building blocks, be it routine protocols for data acquisition, data processing, or data analysis including advanced strategies for fitting spectral simulations to the obtained data. Furthermore, it requires measurement software and hardware to be similarly modular and extendable, in order to incorporate other methods, e.g. electrochemistry or optical spectroscopy, or to advance existing measurements.

The more robust and automated the existing building blocks are, while retaining their modularity and interoperability, the easier we can combine them in new ways previously not thought of for addressing the new scientific questions. This requires full control over each individual parameter, while hiding unnecessary complexity behind an easy-to-use interface.