Ring and Cage Assemblies for Main Group Elements

Robert T. Paine博士，新墨西哥大学化学系，由化学系无机、生物无机和有机金属化学项目支持，研究磷硼笼和环分子。重点研究三坐标主基团原子的基本断键和成键过程。该项目的基本目标是开发新的、通用的合成主基团环和多环化合物的方法，并探索将这些物质用作磷化硼固态材料的前体。具体来说，将制备核心核数大于5的新型硼磷笼和含有一个或多个杂原子的类似物，并开发无环构建块作为笼组装的试剂。虽然磷化硼（BP）是一种具有潜在价值的电子特性的半导体，但目前它只是一种显示低电子迁移率且难以加工的不纯材料。这些特点阻碍了BP的商业发展。本项目将制备由三维B-P框架组成的分子笼分子。这些化合物和与之密切相关的分子一起，将少量的第三种元素纳入笼中，作为前体进行研究，从而更容易、更清洁地制造出BP。由于BP的小片段将在分子的核心进行，因此精确控制BP的大小是可能的，从而有可能获得用于“量子限制半导体”的非常小的BP颗粒。

Dr. Robert T. Paine, Chemistry Department, University of New Mexico, is supported by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Chemistry Program of the Chemistry Division for the study of phosphorus-boron cage and ring molecules. The study will focus on the fundamental bond breaking and making processes of tricoordinate main group atoms. The basic objective of the project is the development of new, general synthetic methods for main group ring and polycyclic compounds and to explore the use of these species as precursors to boron phosphide solid state materials. Specifically, new boron-phosphorus cages with core atom nuclearities of greater than five and analogues that contain one or more heteroatoms will be prepared and acyclic building blocks will be developed as reagents for cage assembly. While boron phosphide (BP) is a semiconductor with potentially valuable electronic properties, it is currently only available as an impure material that displays low electron mobility and that is hard to process. These features have retarded commercial development of BP. In this project molecular cage molecules, which are composed of a three dimensional B-P framework, will be prepared. These compounds, together with closely related molecules that incorporate small amounts of yet a third element into the cage, will be examined as precursors from which BP can be made more easily and cleanly. As small fragments of BP will be preformed in the core of the molecules, precise control of the size of the resulting BP may be possible, leading to the possibility of obtaining very small particles of BP for use as `quantum-confined semiconductors.`