Prof. Dr. Akira Sekiguchi

Profile

Academic positionFull Professor
Research fieldsInorganic Molecular Chemistry
KeywordsAromatizität, Silicumchemie, n-systeme, Sandwichverbindungen

Current contact address

CountryJapan
CityTsukuba
InstitutionUniversity of Tsukuba
InstituteDepartment of Chemistry

Host during sponsorship

Prof. Dr. Matthias DriessArbeitsgruppe Anorganische Chemie/ Metallorganische Chemie und Anorganische Materialien, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin
Start of initial sponsorship01/07/2005

Programme(s)

2004Humboldt Research Award Programme

Nominator's project description

The conquest of the chemical element silicon, the most important sister-element of carbon, is one of the demanding challenges in synthetic organometallic chemistry, mainly because the intriguing electronic properties of silicon compounds are very important ingredients for improved computer-chip technology, semiconducting materials and stone-conservation. Professor Sekiguchi has made several outstanding contributions to modern organosilicon chemistry and is currently the leading expert in silicon chemistry in Japan. Among many intriguing discoveries, his most spectacular results comprise the synthesis of elusive cyclotrisilylium ions, persistant silyl radicals, the first triplet-silylene, highly-strained silicon-rich clusters and most recently the astonishing access to stable compounds having silicon-silicon triple bonds (so-called disilynes). His work is published in highly reputated scientific journals with large impact, like "Science", "Angewandte Chemie" and "Journal of the American Chemical Society". Especially the Disilynes are promising starting materials for the synthesis of novel exciting open-shell silicon compounds and of thermally-resistant molecular magnets based on silicon: This is exactly the endeavour of the actual collaboration with Professor Driess at the Ruhr-University Bochum, who recently developed the first thermally stable magnetic silicon compound.