  Iron complexes with a suitable ligand field undergo spin-crossover (SCO),
which can be induced reversibly by temperature, pressure or even light.
Therefore, these compounds are highly interesting candidates for optical
information storage, for display devices and pressure sensors. The SCO
phenomenon can be conveniently studied by spectroscopic techniques like Raman
and infrared spectroscopy as well as nuclear inelastic scattering, a technique
which makes use of the M\"ossbauer effect. This review covers new developments
which have evolved during the last years like, e.g. picosecond infrared
spectroscopy and thin film studies but also gives an overviewon newtechniques
for the theoretical calculation of spin transition phenomena and vibrational
spectroscopic data of SCO complexes.

Chemical Physics