Dr. Jeremy Qualls

Research

I. Organic Charge Transfer Salts: Whether it leads to the observation of new states of matter, higher Tc superconductors, or lightweight electronic components, research on the organic conductors will advance discovery in material science. After two decades of intensive scrutiny, organic conductors continue to be attractive systems for realizing novel transport phenomena and discovery. Due to their relatively simple electronic structures, organic conductors are ideal systems for studying basic principles of quantum phenomena, electron transport and interactions, and coupling mechanisms. SSU is addressing this by developing a program to synthesize and characterize new organic conductors. Organic charge transfer complexes have a wide range of electronic properties ranging from that of insulator to that of a good conductor. Outside of the ability to tailor electronic and magnetic properties, competition between electronic instabilities within the materials lead to a variety of exotic and novel electronic states. The subtle nature of these systems allows many of the novel states to be modified or even induced by temperature, applied pressure, or high magnetic fields.

 

Organic compounds tend to form in layers and chains, with the molecular overlap between neighboring pi orbitals somewhat limited. As a result, their electronic structures tend to be highly anisotropic (quasi-one and two dimensional). The high conductivity of these organic salts originates from the transferred electrons (or holes) between donor and acceptor molecules acting as free carriers. In most organic conductors, transport is believed to be coherent and characterized by low-dimensional electronic structures with competing instabilities.

 

 

II. Molecular Magnets

Molecular magnetic materials are of intense worldwide interest and have initiated a renaissance in the field of magnetism.  This new research area deals with the magnetic properties of molecules or assemblies of molecules that contain unpaired electrons.  Generally, molecules in a crystal lattice are very weakly interacting.  However, extended systems (polymers) can be assembled from molecular entities or “building blocks” in a way that maximizes the magnetic interactions between these units to yield bulk magnetic behavior.  Currently Dr. Jamie Manson at Eastern Washington University is synthesizing materials for characterization and investigation at SSU.

 

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