Date/Time
Date(s) - 05/12/2024
1:30 pm - 2:20 pm

Title: Nitrogen-Containing Ligands in (Sustainable) Photoactive Materials

Date: Thursday December 5, 2024

Time: 1:30-2:20pm

Room: ABB 165

Host: Dr. David Emslie

Abstract:
Photoactive coordination complexes play an outsized role in modern photochemistry, owing primarily to their ability to absorb visible light and generate useful, long-lived excited states. Ligand design is key to efforts to control both light absorption and the properties of excited states– including their lifetimes–through manipulation of a molecule’s electronic structure, with nitrogen donors ubiquitous in contemporary chromophores.

In this presentation, two approaches to improving the photophysical properties of coordination complexes will be discussed. First, the use of site-selective benzannulation to access ligands bearing electronically accessible extended ?-systems with chemically isolated imine-like C=N moieties will be introduced as a means to boosting emission from precious-metal complexes and accessing unconventional excited states in abundant element chromophores. Second, molecular architectures that allow amido donors to exert favorable influence on light absorption or temper undesirable impacts on emission will be discussed.

Biography:
Originally from Southern Ontario, Dave Herbert received his BSc in 2004 from Dalhousie University/University of King’s College where he worked with Neil Burford on main-group coordination chemistry. He then conducted MSc (University of Toronto, 2006) and PhD (University of Bristol, 2009) research with Ian Manners on the structure and photochemistry of strained organometallic rings and polymers, followed by postdoctoral training at Texas A&M (with Oleg Ozerov) and the California Institute of Technology (with Theo Agapie) in ligand design. In 2013, he joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of Manitoba, where he has held the inaugural Faculty of Science Research Chair in Fundamental Science, receiving tenure in 2019. In 2023, he was promoted to full Professor and inducted into the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists & Scientists.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~dherbert/