ProfessorAdam Bridgeman

• Computational inorganic chemistry
• Bond order and the nature of the chemical bond
• Electronic structure of polyoxometalates
• Using electronic resources in chemical education

Computational Study of Polyoxometalates: Polyoxometalates are a huge and structurally diverse class of compounds with remarkable but poorly understood chemical and physical properties. They are prototypical of the highly praised nanomaterials, displaying a versatility that raises interest in various domains of catalysis, magnetism, medical biology and functional materials. Their diversity, size and complexity make rational design of functional nanomaterials a real challenge. We have published the first studies of their vibrational spectra and fundamental studies of their electronic structure. We are currently developing a global framework for predicting their structures and spectroscopic properties.

The Electronic Structure of Transition Metal and High Temperature Molecules: We use density functional theory to model the structures, energetics and spectroscopy of transition metal complexes. For example, we have recently developed a method for calculating the polarized ligand-field spectrum of transition metal complexes with potential applications in bioinorganic and organometallic chemistry.

Fundamental Investigations of Classical Chemical Concepts: Bond order and valence are key to our everyday understanding of chemistry and chemical processes. We are interested in probing the relationship between quantum theory and these comcepts. For example, we have developed software to calculate chemical connectivity ab initio and a graphical device to detect delocalized and hypervalent interactions. The figure below shows the connections in the Anderson polyoxometalate with colour-coded bond strengths and the presence< of a pseudo-aromatic loop.

Chemical Education: We develop and study the effectiveness of electronic resources for enhancing education, including the use of simulations, calculators and games on the web and on mobile phones. We are also researching the role of language in science education and the development of language oriented pedagogical methods. Examples are available on the First Year Chemistry website: firstyear.chem.usyd.edu.au