Eur. Phys. J. D (2016) 70: 237
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2016-70390-3

Colloquium

Evaluating experimental molecular physics studies of radiation damage in DNA^*

¹ Department of Control and Power Engineering, Faculty of Ocean Engineering and Ship Technology, Gdańsk University of Technology, Gabriela Narutowicza 11/12, 80-233 Gdańsk, Poland
² Department of Physical Sciences, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK

^a e-mail: smialek@pg.gda.pl

Received: 15 June 2016
Received in final form: 18 August 2016
Published online: 10 November 2016

Abstract

The field of Atomic and Molecular Physics (AMP) is a mature field exploring the spectroscopy, excitation, ionisation of atoms and molecules in all three phases. Understanding of the spectroscopy and collisional dynamics of AMP has been fundamental to the development and application of quantum mechanics and is applied across a broad range of disparate disciplines including atmospheric sciences, astrochemistry, combustion and environmental science, and in central to core technologies such as semiconductor fabrications, nanotechnology and plasma processing. In recent years the molecular physics also started significantly contributing to the area of the radiation damage at molecular level and thus cancer therapy improvement through both experimental and theoretical advances, developing new damage measurement and analysis techniques. It is therefore worth to summarise and highlight the most prominent findings from the AMP community that contribute towards better understanding of the fundamental processes in biologically-relevant systems as well as to comment on the experimental challenges that were met for more complex investigation targets.