28th Annual Stauffer Lectureship (Day 2 of 2): Professor Jeffrey R. Long, UC Berkeley
Photo Credit: Alain Kesseru
About the Seminar
Ultrahard Lanthanide-Based Single-Molecule Magnets
Scientists have long employed lanthanide elements in the design of materials with extraordinary magnetic properties, including the strongest magnets known, SmCo5 and Nd2Fe14B. The properties of these materials are largely a product of fine-tuning the interaction between the lanthanide ion and the crystal lattice. Recently, synthetic chemists have begun to utilize lanthanide elements for the construction of single-molecule magnets, resulting in a rapid expansion of the field. The desirable magnetic characteristics of the lanthanides are contingent upon the interaction between the single-ion electron density and the crystal field environment in which it is placed. Taking advantage of this interaction, new approaches for synthesizing single-molecules magnets based upon lanthanide ions will be presented. Focus will be on recent work involving: (i) high-temperature magnetic blocking and magneto-structural correlations in lanthanide(II) metallocene and lanthanide(III) metallocenium complexes, (ii) the synthesis and characterization of radical-bridged dilanthanide complexes exhibiting strong magnetic exchange and high blocking temperatures, and (iii) realization of double-exchange and very large coercivities in mixed-valence dilanthanide complexes with metal-metal bonding.
About the Speaker
Jeffrey R. Long is the C. Judson King Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and Director of the Institute for Decarbonization Materials at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a Faculty Senior Scientist in the Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He served as Chair of the Division of Inorganic Chemistry of the American Chemical Society in 2012 and as a founding Associate Editor of the journal Chemical Science. He co-founded two companies: Mosaic Materials, which was acquired by Baker Hughes in 2022 and is developing metal–organic frameworks for low-energy carbon dioxide capture, and ChemFinity Technologies, which is producing materials for the selective removal of toxic and high-value ions from water. His 395 publications have received more than 97,000 citations, and his recent awards include the Eni Award Energy Transition Prize, election to the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Chemistry Ludwig Mond Award, the American Chemical Society F. Albert Cotton Award in Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.