The diverse reactivity patterns, unique structural features imparted by the cumulated double bonds, and possibility of axial chirality have garnered allenes considerable attention in organic synthesis. Numerous methods have been described in the literature to afford optically active allenes starting from chiral starting materials, yet catalytic and asymmetric methods to...
High-pressure and -temperature synthesis is a powerful tool for synthesizing new intermetallic compounds that cannot be formed using traditional solid-state syntheses. Such metastable compounds can exhibit unrivaled structural complexity, unique bonding, and unusual properties. In the simplest case, there are many binary systems in which no intermetallic compounds are known....
Noncentrosymmetry (NCS) is a requirement for many properties such as piezoelectricity, pyroelectricity, and nonlinear optical activity like second harmonic generation which are desirable for a variety of commercial applications. One method which has been employed to successfully synthesize NCS compounds utilizes acentric anionic groups, such as oxyfluoride metal complexes, as...
The projected increase in the use of nanomaterials raises concerns about adverse impacts new technologies utilizing these materials may have on the environment. These concerns can be addressed from a chemical perspective by studying how emerging nanomaterials interact with biological systems. Fundamentally, the key interactions for nanomaterial uptake into a...
The tools of computational chemistry allow researchers to gain insight into chemical systems that would be difficult or impossible to gain experimentally. This dissertation discusses the application of several of these computational tools to chemical systems of interest. First, we present several studies of plasmon resonance in Ag nanoclusters using...
Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) materials are of great interest as a low-cost material the purposes of achieving wide spread, solar energy adoption. However, a limiting factor in materials development is the ability to proactively determine the active layer thin film morphology that largely informs device performance. Thus, understanding how materials design...
Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) materials are of great interest as a low-cost material the purposes of achieving wide spread, solar energy adoption. However, a limiting factor in materials development is the ability to proactively determine the active layer thin film morphology that largely informs device performance. Thus, understanding how materials design...
Fused polycyclic scaffolds with three-dimensional complexity from an array of stereocenters compose the core structures of countless natural product families with a variety of desirable biological activity. The development of synthetic methods and strategies to afford rapid access to these structures is essential to expose a wealth of untapped biological...
Self-assembled monolayers as tunable chemical platforms broadly enable the study of the interaction between biological species and synthetic surfaces. Unlike small molecule chemistry where the freely diffusible product can interact with biological targets as an inhibitor or probe, interfacial chemistry allows for the controlled and multi-valent presentation of ligands to...
Spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) are a class of structures composed of spherical nanoparticle cores that are densely functionalized with radially oriented, linear DNA. SNAs exhibit properties that are distinct from those of their linear counterparts. These constructs can readily enter cells, evade nuclease degradation, and bind complementary DNA targets with...