over the course of the past year, I had occasion to study some of the beginnings of single-molecule spectroscopy (SMS), which emerged in the 1980s. The importance of this subject-and indeed many, if not most, subsequent SM experiments-lies in the detection and study of the properties of individual molecules. Researchers began to recognize that the electronic absorbance and emission spectra of large groups of molecules (i.e., bulk samples) represent ensemble averages. The averaging conceals the diversity of actual molecular behavior that does exist and thereby denies the chemist a deeper understanding of molecular properties.
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