Synthesis of Molecule Wires and Nanostructures

A fully funded doctoral training partnership (DTP) PhD studentship is available to start from September 2018 for 42 months, in the groups of Professor Simon Higgins, Richard Nichols and Dr Frank Jaeckel. This is primarily a synthetic project so it would suit a student interested in molecular and nano-structure synthesis, but also involves characterisation of the molecular wires and nanostructures produced. The synthesised molecules and nanostructures will have application in molecular, nano- and opto- electronics. The molecules and structures will be designed to have interesting optical, electrochemical or catalytic properties. For example, the interactions of organometallic wires with substrates representing key steps in homogeneous catalysis and electrocatalysis, such as oxidative addition and reductive elimination, will be examined in situ. The organometallic molecular wires will be designed to have different junction conductances upon undergoing these fundamental transformations owing to the operation of quantum interference effects. Molecular wires exhibiting keto-enol tautomerisation are a further classes of compounds which will be synthesised (for example, molecules 1, 2 and 3).

The project will also involve the synthesis of nanostructures that will be designed to exhibit distinctive optical behaviour. An example here is the synthesis of metal nano-stars as shown in the figure above, which feature exceptional light absorption and optical resonance behaviour. Both chemical and physical methods will be used to produce a wide range of nanostructures with interesting optical properties.