Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

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.