This award supports the participation of Drs. Ralph Zingaro and Edward Meyers of Texas A&M University in collaborative research with Drs. N. Petragnani and J. Comasseto of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The focus of their joint effort is the characterization of physico- chemical properties of new tellurium (Te) and selenium (Se) compounds which have been synthesized by the two groups. Both groups have well established programs in this unusual area of organometallic chemistry, and their prior collaboration has been very productive. In particular, the Brazilian group has expertise in synthesis of Se/Te organometallics and the development of general synthetic routes for various classes of such materials. The U.S. group, in addition to their experience in synthesis, has expertise and state of the art instrumentation for spectroscopic characterization and single crystal x-ray structural determination of new compounds. This complementary expertise devoted to an area of mutual interest has resulted in very fruitful collaboration in the past which can be expected to continue. Organometallic chemistry has become an increasingly important field because of the potential uses of such compounds as electronic materials. The principle investigators in this collaboration have contributed substantially to our knowledge of Se and Te organometallic compounds, which should prove to be important for the development of new methods for the preparation of novel electronic materials.
