The Microwave and Infrared Spectra and Structure of Hydrothiophosphoryl Difluoride

Rod had joined the faculty at the then "Georgia State College" in 1968 and had constructed a microwave spectrometer to begin molecular research at Georgia State. His thesis research at Georgia Tech had been in microwave spectroscopy, and then Rod and Brenda went to North Wales in 1966 for a post-doc at the University College of North Wales in Bangor after he finished his Ph. D. in 1966.

In the Chemistry Department of the University College of North Wales under the supervision of Professor John Sheridan, Rod helped with the research of the graduate students and pursued several research projects of his own. The most productive of those projects was the study of the molecule SPF₂H which offered the unique opportunity to pursue the molecular information to the point of determining the complete structure of the molecule - bond lengths and angles. It is rather rare to be able to determine a complete structure with high accuracy.

Rod's standard descriptive line over the years has been "I'm the world expert on the structure of hydrothiophosphoryl difluoride, but hardly anyone ever asks me about it!"

While the research for this project was completed in 1967, the formal publication was not until 1973. One of the reasons of course was a change in countries, a new position, and setting up a new research program. But another was that we wanted to include the infrared spectrum as well, and that was being done by Dr. Noel Owen, a faculty member at Bangor. We finally got it all together for the publication shown.

More detail about the actual study may be found with the description of the molecular structure on the HyperPhysics site.