This Presidential Young Investigator Award given in the Organic Dynamics Program provides support for the research of Dr. Robert McMahon at the University of Wisconsin/Madison. The focus of the research is the generation, isolation, chacterization and reactivity of reactive intermediates. The common experimental approach will be matrix isolation spectroscopy. The systems to be studied are intramolecular hydrogen migration in carbenes, nitrenes and 16-electron coordinatively unsaturated organometallic species and the chemistry of reactive carbon species such as carbene, carbyne and atomic carbon. In the latter system, the bond-shifting automerization of acetylenic carbenes will be studied in the context of polymerization of diacetylenes to polydiacetylene, soliton migration in conducting polymers and linear carbon structures as applied to carbon fiber technology.
