Lukas Trombach

Citation

Thesis Title
From Mathematical Models to Quantum Chemistry in Cluster Science

Read article at Massey Research Online:

Clusters are chemical compounds, which have already found a wide range of application in various consumer products. They are crucial for the description of bulk formation as they bridge the gap between single atoms and the solid state. Mr Trombach was able to show the usefulness of geometric approaches based on graph theory to describe such clusters, in particular, metal and rare-gas clusters. He investigated a structural relationship between carbon fullerenes and hollow gold clusters, establishing that hollow gold cages can be a favourable arrangement. In addition, Mr Trombach explored the relationship between two commonly used interaction potentials and applied those findings to an old mathematical question called the Gregory-Newton problem important in coordination chemistry. While the research was curiosity-driven, his results may be used to improve some important chemical processes.

Supervisors
Distinguished Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger
Dr Elke Pahl