| Citation | Professor Legon is distinguished for his major contributions to our understanding of the nature of the hydrogen bond, especially the factors that control its directionality, its strength and the extent of proton transfer from the donor to the acceptor. He achieved this through novel applications of rotational spectroscopy, mainly by recognising the potential of the pulsed nozzle microwave method. He constructed the first instrument anywhere outside W H Flygare's laboratory, having worked on the prototype in 1980. The culmination of several detailed spectroscopic studies has been a set of powerful and important generalisations which provide the basis for the accepted model of this ubiquitous interaction |