Synthesis and coordination chemistry of new redox-active ligands

世界范围内的经济进步以及我们文明的健康和福祉与新材料的发展不可分割地联系在一起。从石器时代到青铜时代到铁器时代的文明，以及统治地球大片地区的帝国，它们的生存和成功都与生产创新工具、仪器和机器的能力联系在一起。在现代社会中，重要材料的例子随处可见：磁性材料用于驱动汽车电机，为磁共振成像（MRI）扫描仪等重要诊断设备供电，并将数据存储在计算机硬件中。为了进一步发展我们的技术，我们必须超越宏观世界，进入纳米尺度，在那里分子、离子和原子成为我们的基石。我们的研究小组从事这些分子基材料的生产。我们通过设计和合成新分子来开展这项工作，我们预计这些新分子将表现出有趣的性质。我们的长期目标是生产具有有用的磁性、电子或光学特性的新型分子尺度材料，为现实世界的问题提供解决方案。例如，磁性数据存储的小型化到分子尺度将导致计算机存储能力的显著增强；量子计算机将是革命性的！我们还专注于多功能材料的开发。多功能材料的特点是物理特性的组合，这些特性通常是不寻常的，通常不会自然地同时发现，比如导电性（想想沿着电线移动的电）和磁性。例如，今天在核磁共振扫描仪中使用的昂贵的超导磁体只能在非常低的温度下工作，因此维护成本非常高；我们正在尝试生产在高温下工作的磁性/导电性混合材料。在我们能够实现这些应用之前，我们必须开发和合成具有有趣性能的新材料。这是我们研究工作的核心。

Worldwide economic progress and the health and well-being of our civilization are irrevocably linked to the development of new materials. From the Stone-to-Bronze-to-Iron Age civilizations and over Empires that have ruled swaths of the planet, their survival and successes have been tied to the ability to produce innovative tools, instruments, and machines. Examples of important materials are everywhere in our modern society: Magnetic materials are used to drive motors in automobiles, power important diagnostic equipment, like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners and to store our data in computer hardware. To further develop our technologies, we have reached the point where we must look beyond the macroscopic world and into the nanoscale where molecules, ions, and atoms become our building blocks. Our research group is engaged in the production of these molecule-based materials. We carry out this work through the design and synthesis of new molecules that we anticipate will exhibit interesting properties. Our long-term goal is to produce new molecular-scale materials with useful magnetic, electronic or optical properties to provide solutions to real-world problems. For example, the miniaturization of magnetic data storage to the molecular scale will result in dramatically enhanced computer storage capabilities; quantum computers will be revolutionary! We are also focused on the development of multifunctional materials. Multifunctional materials feature combinations of physical properties that are often unusual and not typically found together naturally, such as electrical conductivity (think of electricity moving along a wire) and magnetism. The expensive superconducting magnets used today in MRI scanners, for example, work only at very low temperatures and hence are very costly to maintain; we are attempting to produce hybrid magnetic/conducting materials that operate at elevated temperature. Before we can realize any of these applications, we must develop and synthesize new materials with interesting properties. That is at the heart of our research efforts.