This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). In this RUI project funded by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Chemistry Program of the Chemistry Division, Keith Walters of Northern Kentucky University will develop and assemble molecular building blocks for supramolecular structures that exhibit charge transfer when irradiated with light. The PI will design and synthesize linkers to assemble fullerenes, conjugated polymers, and metal centers into various types of structures. The PI will use spectroscopic methods to examine the photophysical properties of these assemblies. The proposed systems should provide fundamental insights into charge transfer processes in new structural motifs which, in turn, could impact technologies such as solar cells and molecular electronics. The PI will incorporate many aspects of this research into the chemistry curriculum at Northern Kentucky University and will develop National Chemistry Week presentations for the general public.
