Transition Metal Clusters as Single-Molecule Magnets

无机化学、生物无机化学和金属有机化学项目的这一研究奖支持佛罗里达大学的George Christou教授在合成和研究能够作为纳米磁性粒子(单分子磁体)的分子方面所做的工作。磁体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对越来越小的磁体的新来源的寻找。提供这种分子的新例子的合成程序正在探索中。此外，正在研究对此类分子的已知实例进行有针对性的修饰，以引入或优化所需的特性。正在开发打开和关闭两个或更多这样的分子之间相互作用的方法，因为这些性质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。对于后者来说，分子的物理(量子)性质也很重要，因此正在进行研究。这项研究的多学科性质为从高中暑期研究人员到博士后研究员的一系列学生提供了广泛的接触和许多化学领域的培训，甚至是一些物理，既在佛罗里达大学，也在合作者的实验室(偶尔短途旅行)。该计划为佛罗里达州的十所大学、本科学院和社区学院组织了一年一度的学生化学研讨会。研讨会为学生提供科学交流和演讲方面的额外教育，并使学生接触到为他们未来的学习和职业提供的广泛的科学活动。新的磁性纳米材料的开发和经过培训的科学人才的使用为许多未来的基于磁性的工业应用提供了基础，例如高密度信息存储、新的计算机技术、医学成像设备、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.