UM Chemistry/Research/NSF CHE 0911528/Design and Synthesis of Photochromic Materials

The National Science Foundation will support work by the groups of Ted Burkey, First Tennessee Professor, and Charles Edwin Webster, Assistant Professor, for the design and synthesis of photochromic materials. "Ultrafast dynamics, mechanism, and linkage isomerization of photosensitive organometallic manganese and chromium complexes" ($390,000)--this Research award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Chemistry program supports work to develop photochromic compounds whose mechanisms are based on a linkage isomerization. The Burkey and Webster groups are synthesizing and investigating new organometallic photochromic complexes to increase our understanding of the factors that affect quantum yields, rates of linkage isomerization, recombination of functional groups, solvation, and formation of transient species.

This project trains students and postdoctoral fellows important to the infrastructure of academic, government, and industrial institutions in collaborative experimental and computational research. This project increases the participation of underrepresented groups in chemistry in our Minority Undergraduate Mentoring and Immersion in Research, American Chemical Society Project SEED, and National Organization of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers at the University of Memphis.

Faster, more stable, and more efficient photochromic organometallics are required in practical applications of photochromic materials, which have established or potential use in data storage, optical switches, microfluidic devices, photoacuators, and smart windows.