9310431 Li The proposed work is a Research Planning Grant for Women Scientists and Engineers. It is concerned with plans and approaches in the preparation, crystallization and structure characterization of novel solid-state ternary and quaternary metal telluride compounds employing hydrothermal synthesis. Initial studies will focus on the preparation of precursors, largely the binary alkali-metal polytellurides that are to be used both as reactants and mineralizers. In subsequent hydrothermal reactions, additional metals or metal complexes will be selected for reaction with the precursors, leading to the desired ternary or quaternary phases. Recent work on the solid-state ternary transition metal tellurides has revealed a number of unusual structural features leading to interesting magnetic and electric behaviors exhibited by these compounds. Most of them adopt unique low dimensional (chain or layer) structures. Many contain extended metal networks with strong metal-metal bonding. An increasing interest in the studies of the tellurides has been exhibited in the last few years, and a great potential exists for synthesis of novel telluride materials with useful properties and applications. Most known solid-state telluride compounds have been prepared at high temperatures, and little has been explored in the lower temperature regime. The need to develop low temperature synthetic techniques is apparent. Hydrothermal synthesis has been proved to be an important and promising method of relatively low-temperature synthesis and crystal growth. It has been widely used and is finding increasing applications in solid state chemistry and material science. While numerous novel molecular and extended systems, such as zeolites, quartz, transition metal phosphates, oxides, and main group sulfides, have been synthesized or crystallized utilizing this technique,including the recent success in the synthesis of several early and late transition metal polyselenides, vi rtually no work has been conducted on the solid- state telluride compounds. ***
