Research

Molecular materials with physical properties that can be controlled by external parameters, such as temperature, light or magnetic field are important synthetic targets because they form the basis of molecular devices. The miniaturisation required by technological advances in electronics makes the demand for such nanoscale devices inevitable. For instance, switchable molecules can be reversibly interconverted between two different states by an external stimulus, sometimes with hysteresis accompanying the interconversion. Inorganic molecular materials based on switchable molecules have potential applications in high density data storage, quantum computing, molecular electronics or display devices

Research in our group is focused on the exploration of different families of inorganic molecules that can display functionality arising from their electronic structure: single-molecule magnets (SMMs), valence tautomerism (VT) and spin crossover (SCO) complexes. We are particularly interested in complexes of transition and rare earth metals that can act in these capacities.  The VT complexes in particular require redox-activity in both the ligands and metal centres and are typically thermochromic. The lanthanoid complexes are also of interest for their luminescence properties.

Density functional theory (DFT) calculations are carried out in collaboration with colleague Dr Lars Goerigk and with Dr Alyona Starikova (Southern Federal University, Russia) and ab initio calculations are performed in collaboration with Dr Marcus Giansiracusa. The detailed physical characterisation of the synthesised species affords an understanding of the key electronic and magnetic properties and allows correlation with the molecular structure. To this end, we perform Mössbauer spectroscopy on the synthesised materials in collaboration with Prof Birgit Weber and A/Prof Guy Jameson, magnetic, photomagnetic and EPR measurements in collaboration with Prof Lorenzo Sorace (University of Florence, Italy), inelastic neutron scattering studies with Dr Richard Mole (ANSTO), photophysical measurements with Prof Max Massi (Curtin University), pressure-crystallography with Prof Stephen Moggach and spectroelectrochemistry with Prof Paul Low (University of Western Australia) and Xray spectroscopy with Dr Mike Baker (University of Manchester, UK). We also oversee the SQUID magnetometer in the Melbourne Magnetometry Laboratory.