Stephen Kukolich
Preferred Method of Contact: Email
Degrees and Appointments
- B.S. 1962, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Sc.D. 1966, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Specialties: Chemical Physics, Energy Science, Instrument Development, Spectroscopy/Molecular Structure, Synthesis/Synthetic Methods Development, Theory, Modeling, and Simulation
Research Description
The Kukolich group studies structures of molecules using microwave spectroscopy. Microwave spectroscopy can provide detailed and accurate 3-D structures for many small molecules. These structures usually provide coordinates with accuracies of 0.01Å for the free molecules in the gas phase. The gas phase structures can be directly compared with high-level theoretical calculations. For many cases additional splittings in the high-resolution spectra give information on quadrupole coupling and other interactions which provide details on the electronic charge distribution (where the electrons are) in the molecules. Many of our recent measurements have been focused on transition metal complexes and hydrogen-bonded complexes, since this class of compounds plays so many important roles in the chemical industry and in biological systems.