Transition Metal Clusters as Single-Molecule Magnets

这个无机、生物无机和有机金属化学项目的研究奖支持佛罗里达大学George Christou教授在合成和研究能够作为纳米级磁性颗粒（单分子磁铁）的分子方面的工作。磁铁对现代社会的许多领域都很重要，工业对设备小型化的持续推动正在推动寻找越来越小的磁铁的新来源。人们正在探索提供这类分子新例子的合成方法。此外，正在研究这类分子的已知实例的靶向修饰以引入或优化所需的性质。在两个或更多这样的分子之间切换相互作用的方法正在开发中，因为这些特性对于这些分子在自旋电子学和量子计算等新技术中的潜在应用非常重要。对于后者，分子的物理（量子）特性也很重要，因此正在进行研究。该研究的多学科性质为一系列学生提供了广泛的接触和训练，从高中暑期研究员到博士后研究员，在化学的许多领域，甚至一些物理，无论是在佛罗里达大学还是（偶尔的短途旅行）合作者的实验室。由该项目组织的佛罗里达十所大学、本科学院和社区学院的年度学生化学研讨会。研讨会为学生提供了科学交流和演讲方面的额外教育，并使学生接触到广泛的科学活动，为他们未来的学习和职业生涯提供了机会。新型磁性纳米材料的发展和对其使用进行培训的科学人才的培养，为许多未来基于磁性的工业应用提供了基础，如高密度信息存储、新计算机技术、医疗成像设备、太阳能转换、自旋电子学和其他电子技术。

This Research award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry program supports work by Professor George Christou at the University of Florida on the synthesis and study of molecules capable of functioning as nanoscale magnetic particles (single-molecule magnets). Magnets are important to numerous areas of a modern society, and the continuing push towards device miniaturization by industry is driving the search for new sources of smaller and smaller magnets. Synthetic procedures to afford new examples of such molecules are being explored. Also, targeted modifications of known examples of such molecules to introduce or optimize desirable properties are being investigated. Methods to switch interactions on and off between two or more such molecules are being developed, because these properties are important to potential employment of these molecules in new technologies such as spintronics and quantum computing. For the latter, the physics (quantum) properties of the molecules are also important and therefore these are being studied.The multidisciplinary nature of the research is providing a range of students, from high-school summer researchers to postdoctoral fellows, a broad exposure to and training in many areas of chemistry, and even some physics, both at the University of Florida and (during occasional short trips) at laboratories of collaborators. An annual student chemistry symposium for ten Florida universities, undergraduate colleges and community colleges is organized by the program. The symposium provides students additional education in scientific communication and presentations and exposes students to the wide range of scientific activity available for their future studies and careers. Development of both new magnetic nanomaterials and of scientific manpower trained in their use provides the foundation for many future magnetism-based industrial applications such as high-density information storage, new computer technologies, medical imaging devices, solar energy conversion, and spintronics and other electronics technologies.