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Research Opportunities for Undergraduates Recap
by Jonathan Young

At the last Research Opportunities for Undergraduates meeting, one of the speakers was Dr. Stephen Hill. He spoke briefly about some his own research projects and was interested in having undergraduates gain research experience in his laboratory.

Dr. Hill is an experimental condensed matter physicist. Among his primary research interests are magnetic quantum tunneling and the properties of molecular crystals. More specifically, the research areas of the Hill group involve microwave spectroscopy and single-molecule magnets (SMMs). Dr. Hill's work in single-molecule magnets has led to a collaboration with Dr. George Christou of the Chemistry Department.

Single-molecule magnets refer to bodies that consist of molecules, where each molecule has properties similar to magnets. In other words, the body must have a net magnetic spin. Single-molecule magnets are a relatively recent development, with the first single-molecule magnet produced in 1991. Researchers continue to dedicate time and effort to improve the SMMs we have today. The goal for single-molecule magnets is to incorporate them into molecular devices, and as a result, current research focuses on raising the critical temperature of single-molecule magnets. The applications of SMMs can have far-reaching consequences. Single-molecule magnets have many important advantages over ordinary magnetic particles composed of metals, metal alloys or metal oxides. Some of these advantages are uniformity in size and solubility in organic solvents. Current hard drives and other devices store information using magnetic particles. Naturally, maximizing the density of information storage is desirable. A method to increase the amount of storage is to minimize the magnetic particles. This is one key aspect that has led to interest in single-molecule magnets. Furthermore, uniformity in size of the magnetic particles is required for reliable storage. There are still many more refinements needed to be made to the production of SMMs and work on SMMs is expected to continue well into the future.

A second area of interest to the Hill group is microwave spectroscopy, which is the study of emission and absorption of electromagnetic radiation by molecules that experience a corresponding change in their rotational quantum number. One area to which microwave spectroscopy has a fair amount of application is chemistry. It offers an additional analytical technique for identifying stable reaction products, purity analysis, and studies of reaction efficiency among other areas. Since some traditional analytical chemical techniques are not well suited for the gas phase, microwave spectroscopy can be particularly useful. But chemistry is not the only area where applications of microwave spectroscopy are found; indeed, rotational spectroscopy has been used in the study of coronal field changes, for example. It is clear that microwave spectroscopy continues to be of scientific interest and value.

Single-molecule magnets and microwave spectroscopy are not the only areas that the Hill group investigates. In general, Dr. Hill also has projects dealing with research at magnetic fields. Undergraduates who are interested in the research topics involved with the Hill group are encouraged to contact Dr. Hill regarding opportunities for a laboratory position.