The Synthetic Organic Program is funding the collaborative research of Dr. Francois N. Diederich, Dr. Orville L. Chapman and Dr. Robert L. Whetten in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. This interdisciplinary program combines state-of-the-art methodology in organic synthesis and in physical chemical characterization to gain new fundamental insights into the structure and bonding of all-carbon molecules and polymers. The goal of the study is to probe the chemistry of new carbon allotropes that differ from the three natural modifications which consist of graphite, diamond and lonsdaleite. Acetylenic cyclo?n!carbons (n = 6-72) will be prepared as isolable all-carbon molecules from stable, well-characterized precursors by the use of flash pyrolysis/laser heating experiments or by photolysis. The cyclocarbons will serve as all-carbon monomers for the controlled formation of crystalline polymer carbon allotropes, composed of regular networks of dehydroannulenes.
