This book has grown out of several courses oflectures held at the
University of Mainz in the years 1978 to 1981, at the Ecole Poly
technique Federal, Lausanne, and at the University of Fribourg,
Switzerland. The last two courses were held in the framework of the "3e
Cycle" lectures in June 1981. According to this genesis, the emphasis of
the book lies on a unified and concise approach to introducing polymer
spectroscopy rather than on completeness which, by the way, could hardly
be achieved in a single volume. In contrast to other books on this
subject, equal weight is given to electronic spectroscopy, vibrational
spectroscopy and spin resonance techniques. The electronic properties of
polymers have been increasingly investigated in the last ten years;
until recently, however, these studies and the spectroscopic methods
applied have not generally been considered as part of polymer
spectroscopy. The increasing use of electronic spectroscopy by polymer
researchers, on the other hand, shows that this type of spectroscopy
provides efficient tools for gaining insight into the properties of
polymers which cannot be obtained by any other means.