| Citation | Distinquished [sic] for his contributions to the structure of inorganic molecules using matrix isolation techniques. He has pioneered the use of this technique in the study of organometallic intermediates, particularly in the fragmentation of transition metal carbonyls under photolytic and other conditions. In his initial studies, he established (1) the structural characteristics of some unusual fragments such as Cr(CO)4, Mn(CO)5, (2) the importance of weak interactions between unsaturated fragments and "inert" species such as methane (Fe(CO)4.CH4), (3) resolved the extremely complex photochemistry involved in metal carbonyl fragmentation chemistry.
His most recent work has been in the development of liquefied rare gases as unusual solvents for photochemical and kinetic studies. He has sued these media to prepare a wide range of normally unstable complexes with ligands such as dinitrogen. He has developed, in a study of these systems, the use of fast-time resolved I.R. spectroscopy as a technique for determining the kinetic data for intermediate species. This technique has subsequently been applied to bioinorganic processes with the further development of this to the study of excited states using fast infra-red methods. |