The Experimental Physical Chemistry Program supports Professor Hoggard in an investigation of the electronic spectroscopy of metal complexes. The positions of sharp electronic absorption features in coordinated metals depend sensitively upon the exact geometry not only of the nearest coordinating atoms, but also of atoms further removed from the metal atom. Experimental and theoretical developments in this research are characterizing and interpreting these effects, yielding structural information for a variety of complexes both in crystals and solutions. Eventual extension to the gas phase or to surface-adsorbed complexes is possible. The initial work will use various convenient transitions in chromium(III) to determine bite and twist angles in bidentate chelate complexes, to examine phase coupling between coordinated atoms connected by a conjugated pi-electron system in a chelating ligand, and to pinpoint bonding geometry two atoms removed from the metal center in appropriate ligands.
