The "art" of inorganic photochemistry

COLL 12

Charles Kutal, Wei Ding, and I. Jonathan Amster. Department of Chemistry, University of Georgia, Chemistry Building, Athens, GA 30602
Arthur Adamson aptly has been called the "father of inorganic photochemistry". Prior to his entry in the late 1950's, the field was largely a collection of scattered observations on the light sensitivity of a few transition metal complexes. His early work established two fundamental and far-reaching principles: (i) the photochemical reactions of a metal complex are not merely photo-accelerated thermal processes, but instead represent the distinct reactivity of electronic excited states, and (ii) the population of excited states of different orbital types can result in different reactivity patterns. In this presentation we shall review a few of Adamson's seminal discoveries, and then provide some recent examples, from our laboratory, that build upon his early work.