New Stable Radicals for Magnetic and Conductive Liquid Crystalline Materials

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This award, in the Organic Dynamics Program of the Chemistry Division, will allow Prof. Piotr Kaszynski of Vanderbilt University to synthesize and investigate liquid crystals which have the unusual feature of also being stable free radicals. This leads to the ability to `tune` electrical and magnetic properties either by controlling the nature of the liquid crystal by structural variation or by controlling the nature of the free radical. The structures to be studied are based on the thioaminyl radical fragment. Computational methods for prediction of properties are used in the selection of specific preparative targets and in refinement of such choices. Both the ultimate target materials and the model non-liquid crystal free radicals, prepared in the course of developing synthetic methodology, will be studied electrochemically, by epr, and by X-ray spectroscopy when appropriate. It is intended that new materials with unusual electrical and magnetic properties will result. This work involves the preparation of new materials in which two attractive structural features are combined. Liquid crystalline molecules respond to small electrical signals and to temperature variation and are used as displays, thermosensors, and otherwise. Stable free radicals possess unusual electrical and magnetic properties intrinsically. This work combines them to produce, characterize, and study a unique class of substances, and perhaps ultimately to develop novel devices containing them.