With support from the Organic Dynamics Program, Drs. Jackson and Kahr will assemble and characterize a series of triarymethyls and their metal ion complexes. Diradical cryptands will also be synthesized to isolate the pairwise electronic interactions that are responsible for magnetic order in the extended materials. Their collaborative study will address structural and theoretical features that relate to magnetic coupling and will probe the requirements for design of molecular solids with long-range structure. %%% Simple organic paramagnets have been thoroughly studied during the past 30 years, and their magnetic characteristics can be analyzed adequately via application of current theory. However, the origins of collective magnetic properties, such as common ferromagnetism, are incompletely understood. Drs. Jackson and Kahr have designed approaches to the synthesis of new organic ferromagnetic materials that are likely to possess novel magnetic properties. The new materials that are likely to result upon completion of this research have potential application for the development of improved information storage and retrieval systems.
