Physical and Photophysical Properties of Spin-Polarized Molecules

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This research award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Chemistry program supports work by Professor James K. McCusker at Michigan State University to study the effect of spin and spin polarization on the physical and photophysical properties of molecules. Specifically, the research focuses on the design and development of chemical systems that will probe whether there exists a cause-and-effect relationship between the physical/photophysical properties of molecules and their innate spin properties, and if so, to what extent can that connection be exploited in order to manipulate the chemical reactivity of molecules. These efforts involve the application of various spectroscopic measurements (both steady-state and time-resolved) that will establish on a fundamental level the thermodynamic and kinetic influence of zero-field spin polarization on the ground- and excited-state properties of molecules. Additionally, the program will explore the connection between spin polarization and chemical reactivity through a series of experiments that will probe spin effects on energy transfer, electron transport through single spin-coupled molecules, as well as polarization transfer through a molecular bridge. The nature of the research is interdisciplinary; students involved in this project (undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral students) will receive broad-based training in synthetic chemistry, state-of-the-art spectroscopic methodology, magnetism, and theory while at the same time working on projects having relevance to fields as diverse as molecular electronics, magnetism, photochemistry, and catalysis.