The design, synthesis and study of novel organic compounds constitute the primary research activities of students and postdocs in the Scott laboratories. Our target molecules are typically chosen for their capacity to exhibit unusual molecular properties and/or abnormal chemical behavior as a consequence of unusual structural features. Rational chemical synthesis of uniform single-walled carbon nanotubes and geodesic polyarenes such as fullerenes, molecular bowls, baskets, and belts represent some of our current objectives. Molecular modeling and high-level electronic structure calculations play a key role throughout all of our research. Uncovering and defining fundamental relationships between the structures of molecules and the properties they exhibit lies at the very root of chemistry as a science and provides the ultimate motivations for this research.

Representative Key Publications:

“A Rational Chemical Synthesis of C₆₀,” Scott, L. T.; Boorum, M. M.; McMahon, B. J.; Hagen, S.; Mack, J.; Blank, J.; Wegner, H.; de Meijere, A. Science 2002, 295, 1500-1503.

“One-Step Conversion of Aromatic Hydrocarbon Bay Regions Into New Unsubstituted Benzene Rings. A Reagent for the Low-Temperature, Metal-Free Growth of Single-Chirality Carbon Nanotubes,” Fort, E. H.; Scott, L. T. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2010, 49, 6626-6628.

“A Short, Rigid, Structurally Pure Carbon Nanotube by Stepwise Chemical Synthesis,” Scott, L. T.; Jackson, E. A.; Zhang, Q.; Steinberg, B. D.; Bancu, M.; Li, B. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2012, 134, 107-110.