Department of Physics and Astronomy

home > seminars 2008 > richardson

Dr. Steven Richardson

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Howard University

Postponed ~~Wednesday April 2, noon~~ Postponed

Thirkield Hall (Physics), room 103

DIAMONDOIDS ARE FOREVER: NEW MOLECULAR
BUILDING BLOCKS FOR NANOSCIENCE

Diamondoids are cage-like saturated hydrocarbon molecules that possess a rigid carbon framework which is superimposable upon crystalline diamond. While lower-order diamondoids (e.g. adamantane (C₁₀H₁₆), diamantane (C₁₄H₂₀), triamantane (C₁₈H₂₄), and anti-tetramantane

(C₂₂H₂₈)) have been synthesized in the lab, attempts to make even larger diamondoids have not been successful to date.

Recently this field has been rejuvenated with the fascinating report by Dahl et al. of the Molecular Diamond Technologies Group of the Chevron Company (J. E. Dahl, S. G. Liu, and R. M. K. Carlson, Science 299, 96 (2003)) of the isolation of new diamondoids from petroleum oil. Given the rigid structures and unique shapes of diamondoids they might be potential building blocks for various applications in nanotechnology and biochemistry.

In this talk we will demonstrate that density-functional theory (DFT) can accurately compute the electronic, structural, and vibrational properties of a variety of existing lower and medium-order diamondoids. We believe that DFT is an important tool that will assist experimentalists in identifying more complicated diamondoids that can either be isolated from natural products or made by rational synthesis.

Steven L. Richardson, Tunna Baruah, Michael J. Mehl, and Mark R. Pederson, Chem. Phys. Lett.403, 83 (2005).

Steven L. Richardson, Tunna Baruah, Michael J. Mehl, and Mark R. Pederson, Diamond Relat. Mater. 15, 707 (2006).

Refreshments will be served