Umpolung Chemistry

The exploration of umpolung chemistry—a non-classical/polarity reversal approach—has gained remarkable momentum due to easy accessibility, catalytic and eco-friendly attributes. It offers new connection(s) between species of two similar charges (either electrophilic or nucleophilic); unlike the classical approaches which are merely limited to two opposite charges (electrophilic and nucleophilic). We are focused on developing methods using hypervalent iodine and phosphine-mediated umpolung protocols to construct novel C–C and C–heteroatom bonds.

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Organo-Hypervalent Iodine Chemistry

The organo-hypervalent compounds (both catalytic and stoichiometric) have rapidly received tremendous appreciation for performing novel organic transformations such as oxidations, C-C and C-heteroatom couplings, rearrangements, group transfers, etc. The iodine atom of hypervalent iodanes functions as an unsaturated center to facilitate transformations like transition metal-mediated reactions.

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Single Molecular Studies and Applications

Miniaturization of tools has a remarkable effect on human civilization, for electronics, it has achieved astonishing development in the last two decades. The first transistor reported has a length of 1/2', whereas the recent intel core-i11 contains more than 5 billion transistors. IBM developed chips in 2015 and 2021, with a source-to-drain distance of only 7 and 2 nm, respectively. Our research is also focused on a similar gap between the source and drain (metal electrodes) where the properties of conducting organic molecules (0D, 1D and 3D) are studied under an applied bias. At this metal-molecule-metal (M-m-M) junction, the behavior of conducting molecules for 0D and 1D is analyzed using either mechanically controlled break junctions (MCBJs), scanning tunneling microscope break junctions (STM-BJs), atomic scope microscope junctions (AFM-BJs), etc., techniques. The miniaturized conductance study will unravel how to improvise charge transport at M-m-M, and to access future electronics with superior efficiencies.