Susquehanna Valley Section

February 2004 Meeting

The three hundred and forty seventh meeting of the Section will be held on Wednesday, February 11, 2004, at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The talk will begin promptly at 8:00 pm in Mulligan 213. The speaker will be Professor Karl T. Mueller from The Pennsylvania State University.

Dinner and Reception: A reception will be held from at 6:00 to 6:30 pm in the Gold Room, which is located on the sixth floor of the administration building. Dinner will begin thereafter. For those attending the reception and dinner, payment of $16.00 cash or check made out to "King's College" is due by Monday, February 6, 2004 to Dr. Trent S. Snider; King's College; 133 N. River Street; Wilkes-Barre, PA 18711.

Directions to King's College:
From I-81: Take I-81 to Exit 170B, exiting right and merging onto RT 309 North. Follow the rest of the directions (from RT 309) listed below.

From RT 309: Take RT 309 to Exit 3: "Wilkes-Barre/Plains." At the stoplight at the end of the exit ramp, those traveling NORTH on RT 309 should turn LEFT (those traveling SOUTH should turn RIGHT) onto N. River Street. Continue on N. River Street for ~1.0 mile, coming to the stoplight at the intersection of River and North Streets (the Luzerne County Courthouse will be on the far right). The first street after this intersection is Jackson Street (there is not a light). Turn left onto Jackson Street and then make an IMMEDIATE left into the parking lot. This is the courthouse parking lot, located behind the courthouse annex.

Once parked, continue by foot down (in the direction you were going) N. River Street to the second building on the right. This is the Administration Building, and upon entering from the front you will see an elevator to your left. You may take this elevator to either the 6th floor (where the Gold Room will be off to your immediate right) or the 2nd floor where you can access Mulligan 213 by turning left out of the elevator and continuing all the way down the hall, through the door at the end of the hall, and around to your left.

The Structure and Chemistry of Complex Materials: Connections from Solid-State NMR
Recent advances in high-resolution solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy provide a unique view of the local structure around atoms in complex solids. Heteronuclear double- and triple-resonance NMR are invaluable tools for determining "connected" atomic sites at the structural level. Properly designed one- and two-dimensional NMR experiments contain information about local bonding and topology, and provide a map of the spin systems in distinct heterostructural environments.

This talk will present methods and results of double- and triple-resonance NMR for exploring structural detail as well as local bonding parameters in the solid state. We study a wide range of inorganic materials, and experimental data will be presented from a number of systems including the characterization and counting of reactive silanol structures on the surfaces of amorphous oxide materials (including low surface area glass fibers). I also will touch upon our novel approach for the simultaneous measurement of multiple internuclear distances in biomolecular solids using new transform methods.

Professor Mueller began his academic career at the University of Rochester. After completing his Bachelors degree, he traveled to the University of California at Berkley where he completed his Ph. D. His research interests lie in the development of experimental and theoretical techniques for solid-state NMR spectroscopy; magic-angle spinning and higher-order averaging of quadrupolar spectra; coherence transfer in solid-state NMR; dipolar-dephasing dynamics and pure dipolar transforms.