International Research Fellowship Program: New Methods of Programming the Self-Assembly of Stacked Porphyrazine Structures

Nitschke, Jonathan R, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

0107296 Nitschke The International Research Fellow Awards Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will provide twenty-four months of support to Dr. Jonathan R. Nitschke to work with Dr. Jean-Marie Lehn at the Universite Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France on new methods of programming the self-assembly of stacked porphyrazine structures. This project is being co-funded with NSF's Math and Physical Sciences Directorate's Office of Multidisciplinary Activities. This project will involve working on new means of coaxing different porphyrin-like porphyrazine molecules to assemble into stacked structures. Self-assembly instructions will be encoded into the molecules themselves, providing new techniques for use in the field of supramolecular chemistry. These stacked porphyrazine assemblies are anticipated to have applications in the areas of solar energy and chemosensing. Dr. Lehn was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1987. He is best known for his investigations of the interplay of non-covalent forces in abiological systems. A focus of his current research is the rational design of supramolecular assemblies.