Chemist Robin Hicks of the University of Victoria has a “radical” approach to designing new magnetic materials and he recently shared it with an audience of U of T chemists.
According to Hicks, superconducting magnets with unusual properties can be made with a particular chemical species called radicals. Most magnets have special properties only at very cold temperatures—around -170 C and lower. Hicks and his group are working on ways to make radical-based materials which are magnetic at room temperature.
The problem with making radical magnets is that it is hard to get their molecular structures just right so that the chemically active components remain stable at warm temperatures.
Most researchers have focused on nitroxide radicals, but Hicks thinks the often-ignored verdazyl group could be the right choice.
Verdazyls are easily synthesized and chemically stable, but no one has yet found the right way to structure these compounds to make useful magnets.
Hicks says his recent results show that verdazyl-metal composites are very promising.
By designing their structures at a molecular level, these “radical” magnets could eventually lead to new small-scale technologies.
