This award from the Chemistry Research Instrumentation Program will assist the Department of Chemistry at Brandeis University in the purchase of an x-ray diffractometer and an associated data analysis system. This new instrumentation will enhance greatly research in a number of areas including the following: 1) Solid state reactions of metal complexes, 2) Sterically encumbered ligands, 3) The conformational analysis of type I and type II B-turns in model polypeptides, 4) Ion pair structures, 5) Applications of organometallic chemistry to materials science and organic synthesis. From molecular wires to enantioselective reagents, 6) Development of new synthetic methods and their application of total synthesis. %%% The x-ray diffractometer is used to make accurate and precise measurements of the full three-dimensional structure of a molecule. The information obtained gives the precise values of all the bond distances and bond angles of a given molecule and it gives accurate information about the spatial arrangement of that molecule relative to the neighboring molecules.
