About the Seminar:

Elements beyond uranium are rich testbeds for probing how relativistic effects alter electronic structure and hence molecular structure, physical properties, and reactivity. However, many questions arise during these studies including: Can we push these elements to display properties that they would not normally display under ambient conditions and perhaps provide better clarity on how relativistic effects manifest? To provide some answers to these questions we have been altering the chemistry and physical properties of complexes containing trans-plutonium elements through either highly reducing or oxidizing conditions in nonaqueous media to access atypical oxidation states and pressurizing these same complexes using diamond anvil cells to modify their molecular and electronic structures. This talk will detail these ongoing investigations.

About the Speaker: 

Thomas Albrecht is a University Distinguished Professor and Director of the Nuclear Science & Engineering Center at the Colorado School of Mines. He is also jointly appointed as a Scientist at Idaho National Laboratory and at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the AAAS and winner of several American Chemical Society awards including the Glenn T. Seaborg Award for Nuclear Chemistry as well as the American Crystallographic Association, M. J. Buerger Award. His research interests center on the chemistry, physics, and materials science of radioactive elements, especially heavy elements like berkelium and californium. Professor Albrecht received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern University and was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Illinois.