Prospects for New Discoveries in the Organics: Synthesis Panel

Abstract

The objective for the panel discussion is to stimulate new ideas and ultimately encourage the synthesis and study of new organic metals and superconductors. In order to understand in detail the organic superconductors, minor and in some cases major structural modifications in the compounds need to be made and the new material studied to see how the physical properties, like the superconducting transition temperature, have been altered. However, the major breakthroughs in this field may well come from high risk ventures where totally new classes of compounds are devised, synthesized and studied. Wudl pointed out that it is best not to refer to the success/failure ratio in the preparation of new superconductors because we learn new chemistry and often physics whether the compound is a hit or a miss. In fact BEDT-TTF (see Figure 1), from which the highest Tc organic superconductors have been prepared, could have been considered a miss when Cava first prepared it in 1976. It was about six years later before the field had developed far enough to indicate that new salts from this compound should be studied. How many other compounds can be converted from a miss to a hit in 1990’s?