This award from the Chemistry Research Instrumentation Program will help the Department of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill acquire an Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spectrometer with variable temperature capability. The EPR will be used to perform both low-temperature, steady-state experiments and new time-resolved experiments in diverse media such as in thin polymer films, on the surfaces of metal and semiconductor electrodes, and in liquid solution over a wide temperature range. %%% Electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy is a technique for studying molecules possessing unpaired electrons. For such molecules two or more different energy states arise when a magnetic field is applied, and transitions among the different occurs upon absorption of quanta of radiation in the microwave region. When an unpaired electron comes in the vicinity of a nucleus with a spin, an interaction takes place which causes the absorption signal to be spilt into several components. From this interaction molecular structure can be inferred. EPR spectroscopy is also used in studies of the rates of reactions and in studies involving radical intermediates produced in a reaction.
