Citation | Matt Rosseinsky is probably the best materials chemist of the younger generation in Britain, today. By deploying new synthetic tools Rosseinsky has identified and crystallised several novel types of crystalline inorganic and metal-organic compounds, opening new aspects of chemical reactivity and new physics. A principal discoverer of the superconducting fulleride salts, of which (with colleagues at Bell Labs ) he holds patents, he later furnished invaluable evidence concerning the superconducting mechanism by synthesising a large number of such salts to modulate the unit cell volume. Later he enlarged traditional solid state chemistry, demonstrating that low-valent oxides could be prepared in strongly reducing conditions and, for the first time, that the hydride ion can substitute oxide. Thirdly, he has made framework compounds related to zeolites but with organic spacers, which flexibly adsorb organic molecules, including the first chiral substrate discrimination, a development with major implications for, e.g. the pharmaceutical industry. |