csi undergraduate conference on research, scholarship ... - CSI Today

Research Poster PresentationsP O S T E R 7 9Synthesis of Rufigallol for LiquidCrystal ApplicationsAbdullah ChughtaiFaculty Mentor: Dr. Krishnaswami RajaDepartment of ChemistryDiscotic liquid crystals have been attractinggrowing interest, not only because of thefundamental importance as model systems for thestudy of charge and energy transport, but also dueto their potential application in organic electronicdevices. A typical DLC material is a large planarconjugated molecule that forms into stacks orcolumns like gambling chips. Because of the highelectron wave function overlap along the stacks inthe columnar phase, the charge transfer along thestack is expected to be effective leading to highcarrier mobility. Furthermore, because of theirliquid crystalline properties any defects on thestacks are expected to rapidly self anneal furtherimproving their electronic properties. Gallic acidwas reacted under Friedel Craft's acylationconditions to produce crude rufigallol. Rufigallolwas further purified by producing Rufigallolhexaacetate ( RHA). RHA was hydolyzed to producepure rufigallol. Rufigallol was futher reacted withpropargyl bromide to produce a hexa alkynederivative (RhAlkyne). RhAlkyne will be reacted infuture with a long-chain azide, utilizing ‘click’chemistry principles, to produce a gallic-acid baseddiscotic liquid crystals.P O S T E R 8 0Youth Indicators in Very Cool StarsDaniel FeldmanFaculty Mentor: Dr. Charles LiuDepartment of Engineering Science and PhysicsThis is a study that searched for a correlationbetween having a weak Na absorption doublet(8183, 8194 Å) and strong H-Alpha emission (6563Å) in late M dwarf stars (M6-M9), as both areindicative of youth. M dwarfs are stars that aremuch smaller and cooler than our sun. Finding theages to field stars (stars without companions) canbe extremely difficult, and studying these spectralfeatures can help us to better constrain the ages ofthese stars, and further our understanding of theevolution of M dwarfs. The utilized sample comesfrom the LSPM Survey (Lepine and Shara, 2005),which contain stars with high proper motions (μ >0.5") and spectra indicative of late M dwarfs.Measurements for emission and absorptionstrength were made using spectral indices. Thestudy's preliminary results suggest the absence of acorrelation between Na absorption and H-Alphaemission. This could indicate that these youthindicators are sensitive to different time periods inan M dwarf’s life. Further research hopes to solidifyand expand upon the preliminary results, and tolook into other youth indicators, such as thekinematics of the stars.63