Dr. Peter C. Ford of the Chemistry Department, University of California at Santa Barbara, is supported by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Program for studies of the photochemical properties of some organometallic and coordination compounds of transition metals. The first study will explore physical and chemical excited state deactivation pathways of luminescent compounds, including rhodium amines, chromium acetylacetonate derivatives, copper amines and thiocarbamates, and some inclusion compounds. Accompanying theoretical models will be developed. The second study is concerned with determining the chemical reactivities of short-lived organometallic intermediates produced as the primary photoproducts of excited stae reactions. The cluster fragmentation of triangulo-dodecacarbonyltriruthenium(0) and a related alkylidyne cluster will be investigated in detail. The third project is an initial photochemical study of nitroprusside, focused especially on the release of nitrosyl. Laser flash photolysis and luminescence spectroscopy are among the techniques which will be used. %%% These studies will provide fundamental information on mechanism and dynamics of excited state processes that will be useful in inorganic photochemistry and more generally in molecular engineering. Quantitative information regarding excited states of metal complexes will be obtained. The work is relevant to nonlinear optics, optical memory devices, photocatalysis, and biomedical problems.
