A new aluminium complex bearing a dianionic phenylene-diamine based ligand has been synthesized and shown to catalyze the intramolecular hydroamination of various aminoalkenes.

A neutron source for neutron resonance spectroscopy (NRS) has been developed using high intensity, short pulse lasers. This measurement technique will allow for robust measurements of interior ion temperature of laser-shocked materials and provide insight into equation of state (EOS) measurements. The neutron generation technique uses protons accelerated by lasers off of Cu foils to create neutrons in LiF, through (p,n) reactions with {sup 7}Li and {sup 19}F. The distribution of the incident proton beam has been diagnosed using radiochromic film (RCF). This distribution is used as the input for a (p,n) neturon prediction code which is compared to experimentally measured neutron yields. From this calculation, a total fluence of 1.8 x 10{sup 9} neutrons is infered, which is shown to be a reasonable amount for NRS temperature measurement.

A series of bis(3-hydroxy-N-methyl-pyridin-2-one) ligands was synthesized, and their respective uranyl complexes were characterized by single crystal X-ray diffraction analyses. These structures were inspected for high-energy conformations and evaluated using a series of metrics to measure co-planarity of chelating moieties with each other and the uranyl coordination plane, as well as to measure coordinative crowding about the uranyl dication. Both very short (ethyl, 3,4-thiophene and o-phenylene) and very long ({alpha},{alpha}{prime}-m-xylene and 1,8-fluorene) linkers provide optimal ligand geometries about the uranyl cation, resulting in planar, unstrained molecular arrangements. The planarity of the rigid linkers also suggests there is a degree of pre-organization for a planar coordination mode that is ideal for uranyl-selective ligand design. Comparison of intramolecular N{sub amide}-O{sub phenolate} distances and {sup 1}H NMR chemical shifts of amide protons supports earlier results that short linkers provide the optimal geometry for intramolecular hydrogen bonding.

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