1. Department of Chemistry Seminar Announcement Date/Time/VenueTitle/Speaker 7 Feb (Mon) 11am – 12nn @ S8 Level 3 Executive Classroom Multifunctional Magnetic Molecular Materials Professor Gao Song Peking University, China Host : Assoc Prof John Yip Hon Kay All are Welcome Abstract About the Speaker Professor Gao Song got his BS and PhD in chemistry at Peking University (PKU) in 1985 and 1991, and then worked at PKU till now. He was a Humboldt Research Fellow in TH Aachen from 1995 to 1997. He has been Cheung Kong Professor in College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering at Peking University since 2002, and served as dean of this college in 2006-2010. He is now deputy director of Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences. He received State Natural Science Award (the 2nd Grade) in 2006 because of his contribution in magnetic ordered coordination polymers and molecular nanomagnets. He was elected as member of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2007. In the same year, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK). He is member of Editorial Advisory Board for Chem. Soc. Rev., Chemical Science, and Inorganic Chemistry etc., and Associate Editor of CrystEngComm. Professor Gao Song and his collaborators published more than 300 papers with h-index 51. He is the chairman of the 12th International Conference on Molecule-based Magnets held in Beijing in 2010. His research interests are magnetic ordered coordination polymers, molecular nanomagnets, molecular and crystal engineering, and multifunctional molecular materials. This talk will review the progress in the filed of multifunctional magnetic molecular materials, such as ferromagnetic conductors, photo and piezo switching magnets, chiral magnets, and multiferroics. Some recent results from our lab on new ferroelectric magnetic metal-organic frameworks (MOF), and new iron(II) spin crossover (SCO) compounds with N4O2 coordination sphere, will be presented.

2. Department of Chemistry Seminar Announcement Date/Time/VenueTitle/Speaker 11 Feb (Fri) 11am – 12nn @ S8 Level 3 Executive Classroom Recent Studies on Single-ion Magnets Professor Gao Song Peking University, China Host : Professor J J Vittal All are Welcome Abstract About the Speaker Professor Gao Song got his BS and PhD in chemistry at Peking University (PKU) in 1985 and 1991, and then worked at PKU till now. He was a Humboldt Research Fellow in TH Aachen from 1995 to 1997. He has been Cheung Kong Professor in College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering at Peking University since 2002, and served as dean of this college in 2006-2010. He is now deputy director of Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences. He received State Natural Science Award (the 2nd Grade) in 2006 because of his contribution in magnetic ordered coordination polymers and molecular nanomagnets. He was elected as member of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2007. In the same year, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK). He is member of Editorial Advisory Board for Chem. Soc. Rev., Chemical Science, and Inorganic Chemistry etc., and Associate Editor of CrystEngComm. Professor Gao Song and his collaborators published more than 300 papers with h-index 51. He is the chairman of the 12th International Conference on Molecule-based Magnets held in Beijing in 2010. His research interests are magnetic ordered coordination polymers, molecular nanomagnets, molecular and crystal engineering, and multifunctional molecular materials. Single-molecule magnets (SMMs) have been received great attention for their unique properties since 1990s, such as very slow relaxation and quantum tunneling of magnetization, which offer the opportunity of potential application in information storage and quantum computation at molecular level. Recently we are going to explore the smallest molecular entity with isolated single spin center showing SMM or SMM-like behavior, single-ion magnets, based on the previous work. Some recent results on Dy(III) and Er(III) based mononuclear molecules and their SMM behaviors will be presented.

3. Department of Chemistry Seminar Announcement Date/Time/VenueTitle/Speaker 15 Feb (Tue) 11am – 12nn @ S8 Level 3 Executive Classroom Strategies towards Single-chain Magnets Professor Gao Song Peking University, China Host : Asst Prof Liu Xiaogang All are Welcome Abstract About the Speaker Professor Gao Song got his BS and PhD in chemistry at Peking University (PKU) in 1985 and 1991, and then worked at PKU till now. He was a Humboldt Research Fellow in TH Aachen from 1995 to 1997. He has been Cheung Kong Professor in College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering at Peking University since 2002, and served as dean of this college in 2006-2010. He is now deputy director of Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences. He received State Natural Science Award (the 2nd Grade) in 2006 because of his contribution in magnetic ordered coordination polymers and molecular nanomagnets. He was elected as member of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2007. In the same year, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK). He is member of Editorial Advisory Board for Chem. Soc. Rev., Chemical Science, and Inorganic Chemistry etc., and Associate Editor of CrystEngComm. Professor Gao Song and his collaborators published more than 300 papers with h-index 51. He is the chairman of the 12th International Conference on Molecule-based Magnets held in Beijing in 2010. His research interests are magnetic ordered coordination polymers, molecular nanomagnets, molecular and crystal engineering, and multifunctional molecular materials. Single-chain magnets (SCM) are a novel class of molecular magnetic materials exhibiting slow magnetic relaxation, which arises from large uniaxial type magnetic anisotropy, strong intrachain and very weak or negligible interchain magnetic interactions. Although more than 20 examples of SCM have been reported, the controlled synthesis of SCMis still a challenge. In this seminar, I will review the three strategies for the construction of SCM, highlight typical examples, discuss the role of intrachain and interchain interactions on the overall magnetic behavior of SCM as well as how to control or tune these interactions. For each strategy we present the advantages/shortcoming and then point out the main directions that remain to be developed in the field.