Group 14 reactive intermediates

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The program involves the study of the chemistry of short-lived molecules which are involved as intermediates in the reactions of silicon-, germanium-, and tin-containing molecules. These "reactive intermediates" typically exist for only a small fraction of a second, but it is their chemistry that is usually primarily responsible for how a given chemical reaction takes place, and how efficiently it does so. The study of reactive intermediates and their chemistry is very important in understanding fundamental aspects of bonding and structure, how chemical reactions take place, and for designing new chemical processes or materials that are useful to society. Our work involves the direct detection of reactive intermediates and monitoring them as they go away due to chemical reaction. It involves measuring the rates of their reactions, and ultimately defining the mechanisms by which these reactions take place. Because these molecules typically disappear very quickly due to their very high reactivity, we use pulsed lasers to generate them from stable molecules that we first synthesize in the laboratory, and fast time-resolved spectroscopic methods to monitor their formation and decay. Their formation in this way occurs as a result of a photochemical reaction, and so to be successful, we must also understand the photochemistry of the "stable" precursor molecules. This is studied by a variety of chemical and spectroscopic techniques. Once an efficient precursor to a given reactive intermediate which reacts in well-understood ways is identified, then it is possible to exploit the chemistry for the design of new materials or processes which may be useful to society, which is one of the long-term goals of our work.