Dr. Tarek Ghaddar

Assistant Professor
Physical Organic Chemistry

B.S., AUB (1993); M.S., AUB (1995); Ph.D., Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (2000).

• My research is multidisciplinary, focusing on the relationship between structure and photochemistry in novel compounds and materials (organic and inorganic). I am particularly interested in studying electron transfer reactions in polymers by various photochemical and electrochemical means. This work is important in many industrial areas, such as: solar energy conversion, and construction of molecular electronic devices.
  Lately, I have been working on designing and synthesizing novel photo-active dendrimers, and studying their electron and energy transfer reactions in solution. Dendrimers are star-like hyper-branched polymers that show very interesting characteristics as catalysis material, and lately as multi-photon absorbing compounds (see recent published work). In order to understand the mechanism of this interesting multi-photon phenomenon, characterizing the excited states, radicals, and radical ions in solution and frozen media is essential. These studies involve not only the usual techniques of organic synthesis and mechanistic chemistry, but also special applications of laser and fluorescence spectroscopy, electrochemistry, surface analysis, and other analytical methods.

Selected Publications

• A Dendrimer- Based Electron Antenna: Paired Electron Transfer Reactions in Dendrimers with a 4,4'-bipyridine Core and Naphthalene Peripheral Groups, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2002, 124, 8285 (with M. A. Fox, J. Whitesell, D. Thompson, and J. Wishart).

• Electron Transfer Reaction by Pulse Radiolysis in Naphthalene-labeled Dendrimer and a Ruthenium tris-bipyridine Core J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2001, 123, 12832 (with M. A. Fox, J. Whitesell, J. P. Kirby, and J. Wishart).

• Excimer Formation in Naphthalene-labeled Dendrimer, J. Phy. Chem. B 2001, 105, 8729 (with M. A. Fox, and J. Whitesell).

• Molecular Recognition and Electron Transfer Across a Hydrogen Bonding Interface J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2000, 122, 1233 (with S. Isied, and E. Castner).