The total market for molecular spectroscopy is forecast to grow 4.4% for 2016, and total demand will exceed $4 billion for the first time. The instruments classified in this section generally use some form of electromagnetic radiation to probe samples in order to determine chemical composition.

By a small margin, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is the largest product segment, making up 23.4% of total demand. This market has undergone a recent dramatic change, with Agilent Technologies exiting the market (see IBO 10/15/14). This leaves Bruker and JEOL as the two largest players, and they are also the two dominant players in the high-field portion of the market, which provides the most powerful systems to academic and government core labs. As public funding sources have become more erratic, growth here has been somewhat troubled. However, there is also a growing number of boutique vendors pursuing the low-field portion of the market, which has become an exciting area. These systems are generally designed for teaching or QA/QC applications. The latter application is continuing to experience strong expansion as this formerly exotic technique becomes more accepted in quality applications. Overall, the NMR market is forecast to experience growth of 2.7% in 2016, and total demand is approaching $1 billion.

After Bruker, the next largest vendor in the overall molecular spectroscopy market is Thermo Fisher Scientific. Thermo competes in the majority of individual technologies and is particularly strong in infrared (IR), Raman, and ultraviolet and visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), which is the second largest market segment, accounting for 22.5% of the total molecular spectroscopy market. UV-Vis has very broad applications, from environmental testing to protein quantification. The technique remains widely accepted, and 2016 growth will be on par with the overall growth rate of molecular spectrometry. Thermo and Hach (Danaher) are the leading vendors. Other significant vendors include several other broad-based instrumentation companies: Agilent Technologies, PerkinElmer and Shimadzu.

IR is the next largest atomic spectroscopy product segment, making up 19.1% of total molecular spectroscopy demand, the only remaining segment representing more than 10% of the total market. The IR band of the spectrum is ideal for probing chemical bonds and thus is an excellent choice for compound identification applications. Applications are quite broad, and the technique is supporting growth in excess of overall average molecular spectroscopy demand. PerkinElmer and Thermo are the dominant suppliers.

Color measurement, near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) and Raman spectroscopy are the next three largest molecular spectroscopy segments. Raman is the fastest growing individual molecular spectroscopy technique. Raman is rapidly transitioning from a research to an everyday tool. This has been enabled by a number of technological, software and ease-of-use improvements. Although still a relatively small market, this area continues to foster development and growth across a wide range of applications, from research microscopes to handheld QC tools.

Fluorescence & luminescence spectroscopy, refractometry & polarimetry, and ellipsometry are the three remaining molecular spectroscopy segments. All three should experience 2016 growth in the low to mid-single digits.

The top vendors are generally involved in several different molecular spectroscopy techniques. Significant vendors with smaller shares are often limited to specific techniques. These vendors include FOSS in NIR and IR, Atago in refractometry and Sentech in ellipsometry.