Photophysics of Exchange-Coupled Compounds

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

James McCusker of Michigan State University is supported by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Chemistry Program for research on the chemistry of excited states of transition metal complexes, particularly on ultra fast reactions of Cr(III) species that contain paramagnetic ligands. Interest in this research is centered on characterizing and explaining effects that arise from coupling between two or more unpaired electrons in the photochemically important excited states of transition metal complexes. Ultrafast process will be studied by spectroscopic techniques, accompanied by extensive computations. Although the energies involved in coupling between several unpaired electrons in transition-metal complexes are often small on an absolute scale, such effects often determine the chemical and photophysical properties of such compounds. There has been relatively little prior study of the influence of electronic and magnetic coupling on photochemical and photophysical properties of transition metal complexes. The research proposed under this proposal has the potential greatly to expand scientific understanding of profound effects that electron-electron coupling exerts on phochemical reactivity of transition metal species. There are many potential applications of such understanding in important technological areas, such as the design and fabrication of electronic devices using novel molecular based magneto-optical materials.