CAREER: Boracycles with Unusual Bonding as Creative Strategies for Main-Group Functional Materials

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With the support of the Chemical Synthesis Program of the Division of Chemistry, Dr. Robert Gilliard of the University of Virginia, Department of Chemistry, is studying the synthesis of boron doped organic molecules to advance of organic light emitting diode (OLED) materials. Compounds containing carbon-nitrogen rings have a variety of applications in the development of new drugs and other medical applications. However, when select carbon atoms are replaced with boron in these cyclic compounds, special properties are induced that cause these “boron-doped” molecules to emit light and/or change color, making them suitable for the advancement of electronics such as television, cell phone, and computer displays. A challenge that remains is the development of low-cost and long-lasting materials that absorb or emit light with specific colors and intensity. This can be achieved by coupling boron with non-metal elements such as phosphorus, or metals like gold. This project also contains outreach activities aimed at increasing educational success and graduation rates for underrepresented minorities and Virginia community college students who transfer to the University of Virginia to complete a bachelor’s degree. These students will have the opportunity to conduct science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research and will receive degree-specific mentoring and professional development, enhancing their preparedness for graduate school and careers in science.The goals of the project are to develop new synthetic methods and establish reactivity trends for low-valent boracyclic materials with unusual bonding. Significant effort will be focused on the synthesis of stable open-shell boron radicals for energy storage and conversion. The primary synthetic strategy will involve chemical reduction of suitable haloboracyclic starting materials. The redox and electronic properties of these radicals will be studied with experiment and theory to access unusual spin states for the design of optoelectronic materials. An additional goal of the project is to investigate the synthesis and photophysical properties of boron-heteroatom-doped materials. This will involve two primary strategies: a) phosphinidene transfer from boraphosphaketene materials and subsequent ring expansion to form 6- and 8-membered boron-phosphorus-doped heterocycles and b) nucleophilic substitution using novel boracyclic anions to form boron-transition metal and boron-main-group element materials. Transfer students from local Virginia community colleges and underrepresented minority undergraduates will participate in these research activities, with the aim of providing high-quality educational and technical training, thereby increasing the diversity of the STEM workforce.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.