Synthesis of Polymer Hybrids Featuring Nanoscopic Transition Metal Clusters as Building Blocks

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This award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry program supports Professor Zhiping Zheng at the University of Arizona to develop polymer hybrid materials featuring transition metal chalcogenide clusters as nanoscopic building blocks. Structurally altered well-defined cluster isomers will be used as monomers and initiators for controlled radical polymerization, as reagents for coupling with conjugated organic monomers, or as labile starting materials used in ligand exchange reactions for desired polymeric/dendritic ligands. Through the use of these designed cluster isomers, cluster-polymer hybrids with distinct and tunable molecular composition, structure, and properties are envisioned. This research addresses fundamental questions as to how the structures and functions of the cluster building blocks, together with those of the polymeric components, affect the properties of the resulting hybrids. This research will involve graduate students, undergraduates, and high school students, and include gender, ethnic, and geographic minorities. The possible practical applications of these materials are in organic light-emitting devices, photovoltaics, and biomedical imaging.