High energy resolution X-ray spectroscopy for air-sensitive actinide compounds

Innovation in actinide chemistry invariably involves the study of highly air-sensitive species. The synthesis of model complexes provides a means to interrogate the fundamentals of f-block electronic structure and can be applied to challenge established trends concerning redox activity, metal-ligand covalency and magnetism. This research can be enhanced with orbital selective X-ray spectroscopies to provide definitive proof for proposed models and to rationalise electronic structure quantitatively. The recent development of f-block element resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) provides new opportunities to measure electronic structure with unprecedented precision. So far f-block RIXS has been limited to air-stable samples due to a lack of suitable transport and measurement infrastructure. Astonishingly, RIXS has not yet been adopted by the f-block chemistry community. This studentship will facilitate important seminal RIXS studies of isostructural families of U and Th organometallic complexes in 2+, 3+ and 4+ oxidation states. The student will be performing X-ray spectroscopy measurements and performing calculations to simulate spectra. The results will enable an improved understanding of actinide electronic structure. The results will also include significant development of the RIXS technique for actinide research.