This award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Program and the Office of Special Projects is made to Dr. Keith H. Pannell of the Chemistry Department, University of Texas at El Paso for collaborative work in the area of silicon and germanium chemistry. The collaboration will involve members of Dr. Pannell's research group and members of the research group of Dr. Laszlo Parkanyi of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. Because the presence of dicarbonyl(cyclopenta- dienyl)iron as a substituent has been shown to promote photochemically-induced rearrangements, isomerizations, and deoligomerizations of oligosilanes and polysilanes, the details of bonding in such systems will be studied. The method of mapping the locations of the silicon atoms will be an X-ray technique jointly developed by Drs. Pannell and Parkanyi. The investigation will be extended to include systems containing germanium as well as silicon. %%% A method for examining the bonding in polymeric materials of silicon and germanium containing metals will be developed. Such materials have potentially useful electronic and optical properties. In addition, the project promotes scientific collaboration between the United States and Hungary.
