SYNTHETIC CONTROL OVER ELECTRON CORRELATION IN POROUS FRAMEWORK MATERIALS

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are a unique materials design platform owing to their tunability and ultrahigh porosity.¹ Developed as high-capacity adsorbents for separations or as storage media for gases, the application of MOFs has expanded to membranes and catalysts. Due to the ionic nature of bonding between metals and ligands in most MOFs, they are often electrically insulating. Careful ligand design, metal selection, and low-dimensional structure implementation have enabled the design of conductive MOFs suitable for purposes in electronic devices, electrocatalysis, and data storage. Beyond isoreticular expansion and variation of transition metals, fine-tuning of the electrical conductivity of two-dimensional MOFs has been limited predominantly to the design of new ligands.¹ Here we report our initial attempts to functionalize organic linker cores to alter conductivity and carrier type/concentration and the design of new redox-active quinoxaline ligand cores. Additional usage of the 2^nd year annual report from my time in the Andrews’ lab were used in full for the completion of this thesis.