Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Hydrothermal Synthesis Of First-Row Transition Metal Polyanions Towards The Design Of Frustrated Magnetic Materials, Megan Smart

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Novel modern materials are constantly being discovered as humanity seeks constantly better improvement to the optics and electronics around us, from lasers used in medical therapies to the magnets and supercomputing chips in our phones. Inorganic oxides commonly draw inspiration from naturally occurring minerals to template new discoveries through substitution of similarly behaving elements with the goal of inducing certain desired properties, such as ferroelectricity or creating the elusive quantum spin liquid. While many minerals are silicates, its periodic table neighbor germanium(IV) has a rich and under-explored crystal chemistry that could contain many new structures and magnetic materials. Another common …

Competition Between Halogen And Chalcogen Bonding And Their Role In Probing Organic Transformations, Andrew Peloquin

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Halogen bonding, the attractive interaction of an electrophilic region on a halogen atom with a nucleophilic region on another atom or molecule, provides a highly directional tool in forming solid-state motifs. This interaction, along with the related chalcogen bonding interactions, forms powerful synthons, which, when combined with other typical intermolecular attractions such as hydrogen bonding, allow for the design of supramolecular structures and inputs to crystal engineering. This dissertation research serves two primary purposes: (1) to catalog halogen and chalcogen bonding interactions with various donor molecules and (2) to utilize these interactions to probe interesting organic transformations.

In order to …