Dr. Tong Ren, Chemistry Department, Purdue University is supported by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Chemistry Program of the Chemistry Division for the synthesis of extended diruthenium-alkynyls and for the study of the charge transfer properties of these complexes. The specific goals of the project are to prepares complexes where a long carbon chain is capped on both ends by redox active diruthenium units and ones where the diruthenium group is inserted into the carbon chain and the capping groups are other redox active moieties. The carbon carbon chain lengths in these species will go to about 10nm. The charge transfer processes that occur in these compounds will be evaluated by spectroscopic, electrochemical, and conductivity measurements. These studies will indicate the details of electronic communication between metal centers that are joined by unsaturated carbon chains of various lengths. The multiple redox states accessible by these metal-metal bonded species allows interesting magnetic, electrophoric and chromophoric properties.
These compounds are being studied as potential "molecular wires," single molecules that can conduct electricity in a nanosized electronic circuit. Fundamental studies of electronic communication and conductance in these molecules may lead to molecular electronic devices. Undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral students working on this project will learn modern synthetic and characterization skills as well as nanopatterning and nanojunction techniques.
