In this project in the Physical Chemistry Program of the Chemistry Division, Prof. Paul N. Schatz will study the magnetooptical spectroscopy of large polyatomic systems, such as fullerenes and porphyrins, in low-temperature noble gas matrices. Prof. Schatz expects to obtain basic electronic structural information about the ground and excited states of molecular, ionic, mixed-valent, and radical species using magnetic circular dichroism and magnetic circularly polarized luminescence spectroscopies and their zero-field counterparts. He will also perform theoretical analyses to fit the spectra in order to obtain spectroscopic parameters for these systems. %%% By studying the spectroscopy of atoms, molecules, radicals, and their respective ions captured in very cold matrices consisting of solids made from noble-gas atoms, scientists can learn much about their molecular structure and other important properties. Prof. Schatz will use magnetic fields and polarized light to aid him in understanding the electronic spectra of several chemically interesting species and to acquire information which can not be obtained any other way. Among the most interesting are fullerene compounds (molecules made exclusively from carbon atoms arranged in closed geometric solids) and their positive and negative ions as well as porphyrin systems. The former compounds are relevant to materials science because of recent applications to areas such as high-temperature superconductivity. The latter are important to bioinorganic chemistry and have relevance to a number of biological sytems.
