Group News

May 2013

Research starts in the Walters group, our ten year anniversary! The xxth students have joined and are ready for action!

Research

New Section

The bulk of our scientific interests lies in inorganic photochemistry. Research conducted in our group centers on the design of novel supramolecular systems for use in charge transfer applications.  "Supramolecular" means that we take components with known properties and combine them together to obtain a new organometallic system where the individual components work together to obtain a desired goal.  Our goal is to create systems that efficiently move charge when excited by light.  These systems could have applications in solar cell development, molecular device and computer applications, and other situations where molecules need to "react" to light.  We are currently examining two different types of systems:

Fullerene-Transition Metal Systems

One "building block" we are using in our systems try to solve the problem where fullerene C60 is attached to a transition metal through a bipyridine ligand.  Previous efforts by other researchers do not provide a rigid structure to link the two components.  Our design provides a rigid, conjugated link between the two components, which will help enhance the ability of charge to flow from the metal to the fullerene and vice-versa.

 

Linear Multimetallic Systems

 

A common supramolecular system used in these light-induced charge transfer applications are conjugated polymers with attached transition metals.  However, these systems fail to realize the full potential of the metal since it's never directly involved in the polymer structure.  These polymers can also be too flexible, thus introducing defects that can inhibit their performance.  We will create a new linear conjugated polymer that incorporates the metal subunit directly into the rigid polymer.  This structure is expected to exhibit dramatic differences when compared to other metal / polymer systems.

 

Spectroscopic Instrument and Development

Research in our group centers on two areas:  synthesis and spectroscopy.  After synthesizing molecules in the two projects above, detailed photophysical studies will be undertaken, utilizing the full spectroscopic resources of the department.  Techniques will involve absorption, emission, transient absorption, and Stark spectroscopy.  Of particular interest will be the study of actual charge transfer distances within the systems via Stark spectroscopy.  Our measurements are described in more detail on the spectroscopy page.