Office: 2128 HEB-N

Phone: (801) 581 4229

Email: clarice@chem.utah.edu

Research Interests:

Throughout time magnets have played a significant role in every day life. As technology advances, our dependency increases for magnets that are versatile and easily synthesized. Traditional magnets are atom-based with unpaired electrons residing in the d- or f-orbitals of the metal. However, most of these magnets are very insoluble and require extreme conditions to fabricate. Much of the current research in this area has been a focus on designing new molecule-based magnets. These magnets have a key advantage over their traditional counterparts in that they usually can be synthesized under mild reaction conditions. When other properties such as optical induced magnetism are observed, the potential for new phenomenon can exist. The focus of my research is the synthesis and characterization of molecule-based magnets, specifically metal(II) complexes that contain the organic compound tetracyanoethylene (TCNE). TCNE is a useful building block because it can easily be reduced to the radical anion due to its large electron affinity. The TCNE^•- radical anion has S = 1/2 which the electron is delocalized throughout the molecule.  Mn(TCNE)₂•xCH₂Cl₂ exhibits magnetic ordering with a critical temperature T_c = 107 K and photo-induced magnetism. In my ongoing research, a new TCNE-Mn compound with a T_c ~ 160 K was synthesized. My goal is to further investigate new high T_c TCNE-Mn compounds. Pressure-induced magnetization is a primary focus of my current research. The correlation between applied pressure and critical temperature enable a better understanding of the magnetic exchange pathway along with structural properties. Furthermore, the solvent effect on magnetization is an important area of research: (1) the effect different solvents (2) amount of solvent has on the magnet properties. The knowledge that is gained from the study of the TCNE-Mn compound can be extended to the investigation of other metal(II)-TCNE compounds.

"Hydrogen Bonding and Multiphonon Structure in Copper Pyrazine Coordination Polymers."

Brown, S.; Cao, J.; Musfeldt, J. L.; Conner, M. M.; McConnell, A. C.; Southerland, H. I.; Manson, J. L.; Schlueter, J. A.; Phillips, M. D.; Turnbull, M. M., Inorg. Chem. 2007, 46, 8577-8583.