Miller, Roger Erwin

Roger Miller was born in Canada (Kitchener, Ontario) into a prosperous and large family of Donald R. Miller, who worked in a tire factory and was directly related to technology and production. Donald, being a master in his field, was a very demanding person to care for and repair his belongings. He instilled these features and his children, which in many respects influenced Roger's future career. In the Miller family, Roger was the first to receive a complete higher education and connected his life with science. It all began in childhood, when young Roger became interested in astronomy, it was with this that his passion for books began, which he first satisfied in the public library, and then in the scientific library of the University of Waterloo . The first manifestation of the experimenter's abilities happened when the 14-year-old Roger decided to assemble his own telescope, the quality of which exceeded all expectations. In addition, as a child, he declared himself to be an excellent organizer: after successfully collecting the telescope, he organized an astronomy club in an abandoned farm building and received financial support from the Ontario government.

The craving for astronomy led him to the idea of ​​getting a higher education, and in 1971 he entered the University of Waterloo, where, by virtue of his craving for astronomy, he ended up in a laboratory engaged in spectroscopy . After receiving his bachelor's degree in 1975, Roger remains at the university to complete his doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Giacinto Scholes , a leading scientist in the development of the molecular beam method. Miller's doctoral dissertation was devoted to this particular method ^[1] . The main problem that Miller was involved in at that time was the detection of a slight change in the intensity of infrared radiation in order to study the absorption spectra of molecules. The solution was the use of a cryogenically cooled bolometer ^[2] . Thus, a way was found to measure the absorbed part of the energy. Roger succeeded in his tasks as an experimenter, for example, he managed to achieve a resolution unheard of for the devices with which he was dealing. His extraordinary abilities quickly became known not only in Waterloo, but also beyond. Advances in the detection of infrared absorption have led to a series of successful studies on the determination of certain properties of the van der Waals complexes and a better understanding of intermolecular interactions as a whole. As a result of significant success in his scientific work, Bob Watts invited Miller to work at Australian National University .

Roger had the opportunity to organize his own laboratory on the basis of the Bob Watts group, who worked before that, mainly theoretically. After arrangement, Roger's first job was to determine the speed and its distribution in the flow of hydrogen fluoride molecules, and then other molecules. This project was implemented in conjunction with John Fenn , a future Nobel Prize winner . While working in Australia, Roger has published about 20 articles related to the study of dissociation spectra of various clusters, such as dimers of nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide, and water ^[3] .

In 1985, Roger transferred to the University of North Carolina , where he equips his own laboratory. Here Miller works as a theory of the intramolecular distribution of vibrational energy; he selects a hydrogen fluoride dimer as an object of study and shows a characteristic broadening of the absorption band caused by dissociation of the dimer, thus determining the range of dimer vibrations and the rate of energy redistribution in the molecule. Shortly afterwards, many other dimers were studied in the Miller group, published in the second half of 1986 - early 1987. As a result of these studies, the structures of some of the particles were also determined, for example, the planar cyclic structure of the carbon dioxide trimer ^[4] or two possible forms of the trimer hydrogen cyanide. All these works made it possible to get a better idea of ​​intermolecular interactions in the gas phase and directly led to an approximate description of interactions in condensed phases. Miller’s group provided experimental data that was extremely necessary for theorists at that time, so in practice a shift in the vibrational frequencies in the cluster was observed depending on the vibrational frequencies in the monomer and also the lifetime of the excited cluster ^[5] . The result was later interpreted by George Leroy based on perturbation theory . Another important achievement of Miller’s work during this period was the first experimental determination of the binding energy of molecules in a hydrogen fluoride cluster, after which the developed technique was applied to calculate energies and other dimers ^[6] .

Miller showed his incredible technical flair and ability to apply technical ideas to solve scientific problems during one of his most significant business trips to Gottingen . Where he developed spectroscopy in helium droplets, the technology for creating suitable droplets was created by his former leader, Jacinto Scholes. Miller not only came up with how to apply the developed technology, but also successfully implemented it in diode laser spectroscopy, having obtained the allowed rotational spectra of sulfur hexafluoride. Roger's further career was mainly related to the method developed in Göttingen. So, returning from a business trip, he installs a similar device in his laboratory, where his group manages to detect the hexagonal structure (H2O) 6. Based on these data, studies of dynamic processes were carried out, for example, the movement of a hydrogen bond ^[7] . In addition, on the account of Miller and his group, the introduction of pendulum spectroscopy to simplify the use of IR spectra in the identification of pure compounds and mixtures. He also made a proposal that allowed a breakthrough in the spectroscopy of large molecules found in biological systems. His proposal was to compare theoretically calculated angles between bonds with experimentally observed ones, this approach was called the method of instantaneous excited angle ^[8] .

Roger Miller was a dedicated adviser to his students. Like a clockwork, he walked around the lab twice a day, providing advice and guiding students conducting experiments. All students from his group always agreed that Roger was able to explain complex things with simple and obvious words, this showed Miller's skills and knowledge to the highest degree and gave him universal respect. Roger instilled in his students a common understanding of approaches in experimental physical chemistry, which made him a renowned specialist in the field of training for both the scientific and industrial environments. Roger conveyed attention to subtle details that could disrupt the experiment. Students called him "an effective motivator." He masterfully knew how to squeeze all the best out of his students. Roger recognized the strengths of his students and helped to focus his abilities in such a way as to achieve the greatest benefit for the student, as well as for the group as a whole. When his former student, Harry Dauberly (professor at the University of Georgia ), was asked what made Roger Miller such an effective mentor, he answered ^[9]

“Roger's enthusiasm was contagious. Students deeply respected his experimental abilities and were ready to sit for hours on their experiments, only to impress Roger with the new results. Roger always demanded the best from his students; he could go up to the student working on the installation with liquid drops of helium and suddenly ask: “How is the battle going? Do you get the best signal-to-noise ratio today? "And even if it was annoying sometimes, the required experimental level of work for his students was understood."

Although Roger was focused on his students, he worked actively in both city and government services. He served as vice chairman of the Department of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina from 1989 to 1994. At the national level, he served on the editorial board of the journals of physical chemistry, molecular physics, international reviews of physical chemistry, and physical and chemical communications. He composed the program for the Department of Physical Chemistry of the American Physical Society. Thanks to his scientific achievements, he received an offer to write an essay in the journal of physical chemistry ^[3] .

Roger received many awards as a result of his fruitful work, including the Pearson Physics Medal in 1981, the Alfred Sloan Research Fellowship in 1987, the Priler Prize in Spectroscopy from the American Physical Community in 1997, and the William Medgers Award from the Optical Society of America in 2000. . In addition, Roger was elected a member of the royal community.

While studying at the University of Waterloo, Roger met Deborah Ann Fraser, he married her in 1975. Roger was an extremely versatile person. He played golf, fished, loved music, was a skilled carpenter, so, returning from Australia, Roger brought with him a cypress tree, from which he independently carved a bench. Roger and Debbie passed on their love of music to their children, Lance, Rachel and Luke, who became musicians. Debbie leads and introduces Roger to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1974. He reacted to this with his characteristic energy and soon became the spiritual leader of this church.

Roger died of cancer at his chapel hill home on November 6, 2005.