Event Description
Xavier Roy, PhD, Department of Chemistry, Columbia University
“Molecular Clusters As Superatoms in Solid-State Chemistry”
Traditional solid-state compounds are infinite crystalline arrays of densely packed atoms, whose interactions lead to cooperative physical properties. In this work, we describe analogous multi-component solids in which the “atomic” building blocks are independently prepared, electronically and structurally complementary molecular clusters rather than simply atoms. The underlying focus of this work is to explore how the interplay between charge, structure, inter-cluster coupling and magnetism in cluster-based crystals can be exploited to fabricate materials with multiple, predictable functions. From a fundamental perspective, we want to understand how the isolated characteristics of superatoms can couple across the crystalline lattice to produce long-range cooperative properties and bulk emergent behaviors. The individual clusters (superatoms) that we discuss are fully tunable and their assembly generates atomically precise solids in which the molecular cluster superatoms can communicate electronically and magnetically, akin to atoms in conventional solid-state compounds. Our compounds exhibit collective materials properties such as activated electrical transport, low thermal conductivity and bulk ferromagnetic ordering. We demonstrate that we can tailor the materials properties of these solids in predictable ways by varying the isolated attributes of the individual clusters.
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