Australian chemist
Nicholas Frederick Chilton is an Australian
chemist and a
Professor in the Research School of Chemistry at The
Australian National University and the
Department of Chemistry at The
University of Manchester .
[1]
[2]
[3] His research is in the areas of
magnetochemistry and
computational chemistry , and includes the design of high-temperature
single molecule magnets , molecular spin
qubits for
quantum information science , methods and tools for modelling magnetic calculations.
[1]
[4]
Education
Chilton completed his Advanced
Bachelor of Science (Honors) degree at
Monash University in 2011 where he finished his final year project with
Stuart R. Batten and
Keith S. Murray .
[3] His research at Monash included the synthesis and characterization of low-symmetry dysprosium
complexes ,
[5]
[6] and mixed-metallic
lanthanide -
transition metal clusters,
[7] that display
single molecule magnetism . During this time, he also designed a software program,
PHI , for the calculation of the magnetic properties of
paramagnetic
coordination complexes .
[8] Chilton completed his
Ph.D. on
magnetochemistry at the
University of Manchester , supervised by
Richard Winpenny and
Eric McInnes in 2015.
[9] In 2021, he was promoted to
Professor in Computational and theoretical chemistry.
Research and career
Chilton completed
postdoctoral research at the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council National
EPR facility in collaboration with the University of Manchester. In 2016, he was awarded the British Ramsay Memorial Fellowship (2016–2018) to research how
coordination chemistry can be used to engineer specific magnetic states of
lanthanide ions. From 2017, He began work as a
Senior Lecturer and a
Royal Society University Research Fellow in the
Department of Chemistry at the University of Manchester.
[3]
[10]
Chilton's research is in the areas of
computational chemistry and
magnetochemistry , specifically on the design of high-temperature
single molecule magnets , molecular spin
qubits for
quantum information science , understanding
paramagnetic
MRI contrast agents , unravelling the
electronic structure of
uranium coordination complexes, magnetic interactions between f-elements and in developing methods and tools for modelling magnetic calculations.
[3]
[1]
[11]
Notable work
In 2017, with synthetic chemist
David P. Mills , Chilton led the magnetic characterization of a
dysprosocenium ion
single-molecule magnet , which exhibits
magnetic hysteresis at 60 Kelvin.
[12]
Chilton has also collaborated in developing software to be used in chemical research, particularly in modelling magnetic relaxation and magnetic properties of coordination complexes.
[13] In 2013, with Alessandro Soncini he designed a computer program for the determination of the orientation of the magnetic anisotropy of the
mJ = ±15/2 state of DyIII via electrostatic optimization of the aspherical electron density distribution.
[14] He also designed a program named
PHI for the calculation of the magnetic properties of
paramagnetic
coordination complexes in the same year.
[8] In 2019, with his post-doctoral researcher Daniel Reta, designed
CC-FIT2 , a tool for the fitting of experimental
AC magnetic susceptibility data using the (generalized)
Debye model , extraction of magnetic relaxation times with associated uncertainties, and fitting the temperature dependence of these data accounting for uncertainties in the underlying relaxation times.
[15]
Awards, honours and nominations
Publications
His major publications include:
Goodwin, Conrad A. P.; Ortu, Fabrizio; Reta, Daniel; Chilton, Nicholas F.; Mills, David .P. (2017).
"Molecular magnetic hysteresis at 60 K in dyspropsocenium" . Nature . 548 (7668): 439–442.
Bibcode :
2017Natur.548..439G .
doi :
10.1038/nature23447 .
PMID
28836589 .
S2CID
4454501 .
Liu, Jingjing; Ortu, Fabrizio; Reta, Daniel; Cleghorn, Jake A.; Yeoh, Yu Xuan; Goodwin, Conrad A.P.; Chilton, Nicholas F.; Mills, David .P. (2019).
"Light Lanthanide Metallocenium Cations Exhibiting WeakEquatorial Anion Interactions" . Chem. Eur. J . 25 (32): 7749–7758.
doi :
10.1002/chem.201901167 .
PMC
6637382 .
PMID
30994214 .
Gregson, Matthew P.; Ortu, Fabrizio; Reta, Daniel; Ding, You-Song; McInnes, Eric M.J.; Winpenny, Richard E.P.; Zheng, Yan-Zhen; Liddle, Stephen T.; Goodwin, Conrad A.P.; Chilton, Nicholas F.; Mills, David .P. (2019).
"Studies of hysteresis and quantum tunnelling of the magnetisation in dysprosium(iii) single molecule magnets" . Dalton Transactions . 48 (24): 8541–8545.
doi :
10.1039/C9DT01655D .
PMID
31112169 .
S2CID
160012501 .
Nicholas, Hannah M.; Vonci, Michele; Loo, Song Wei; Murphy, Siobhan R.; McInnes, Eric M.J.; Winpenny, Richard E.P.; Cassim, Daniel; Goodwin, Conrad A.P.; Chilton, Nicholas F.; Mills, David .P. (2019).
"Electronic structures of bent lanthanide(III) complexes with two N-donor ligands" . Chemical Science . 10 (45): 10493–10502.
doi :
10.1039/C9SC03431E .
PMC
7020784 .
PMID
32110338 .
Parmar, Vijay; Ma, Xiaozhou; Winpenny, Richard E.P.; Clerac, Rodolphe; Chilton, Nicholas F.; Mills, David .P (2020).
"Probing relaxation dynamics in five‐coordinate dysprosium single‐molecule magnets" . Chemistry – A European Journal . 26 (35): 7774–7778.
doi :
10.1002/chem.202001235 .
PMC
7383731 .
PMID
32216105 .
References
^
a
b
c
d
Nicholas F. Chilton publications indexed by
Google Scholar
^
Nicholas F. Chilton publications from
Europe PubMed Central
^
a
b
c
d
e
University of Manchester .
"Dr. Nicholas F. Chilton" . Retrieved 29 May 2020 .
^
"Prof Nicholas Chilton FRSC | The University of Manchester" . www.nfchilton.com .
^ Chilton, Nicholas F.; Langley, Stuart K.; Moubaraki, Boujemaa; Soncini, Alessandro; Batten, Stuart R.; Murray, Keith S. (4 March 2013).
"Single molecule magnetism in a family of mononuclear β-diketonate lanthanide(III) complexes: rationalization of magnetic anisotropy in complexes of low symmetry" . Chemical Science . 4 (4): 1719–1730.
doi :
10.1039/C3SC22300K .
ISSN
2041-6539 .
^ Chilton, Nicholas F.; Deacon, Glen B.; Gazukin, Olga; Junk, Peter C.; Kersting, Berthold; Langley, Stuart K.; Moubaraki, Boujemaa; Murray, Keith S.; Schleife, Frederik; Shome, Mahasish; Turner, David R. (12 February 2014).
"Structure, Magnetic Behavior, and Anisotropy of Homoleptic Trinuclear Lanthanoid 8-Quinolinolate Complexes" . Inorganic Chemistry . 53 (5): 2528–2534.
doi :
10.1021/ic402672m .
ISSN
0020-1669 .
PMID
24520896 .
^ Chilton, Nicholas F.; Langley, Stuart K.; Moubaraki, Boujemaa; Murray, Keith S. (12 October 2010).
"Synthesis, structural and magnetic studies of an isostructural family of mixed 3d/4f tetranuclear 'star' clusters" . Chemical Communications . 46 (41): 7787–7789.
doi :
10.1039/C0CC02642E .
ISSN
1364-548X .
PMID
20856963 .
^
a
b Chilton, Nicholas F.; Anderson, Russell P.; Turner, Lincoln D.; Soncini, Alessandro; Murray, Keith S. (2013).
"PHI: A powerful new program for the analysis of anisotropic monomeric and exchange-coupled polynuclear d- and f-block complexes" . Journal of Computational Chemistry . 34 (13): 1164–1175.
doi :
10.1002/jcc.23234 .
ISSN
1096-987X .
PMID
23386394 .
S2CID
12407342 .
^ Chilton, Nicholas Frederick (2015).
Magnetic anisotropy of transition metal complexes . manchester.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Manchester.
OCLC
1064594612 .
EThOS
uk.bl.ethos.647392 .
^
"People in the Chilton Group" . Retrieved 29 May 2020 .
^
"Research at the Chilton Group" . Retrieved 29 May 2020 .
^ Goodwin, Conrad A. P.; Ortu, Fabrizio; Reta, Daniel; Chilton, Nicholas F.; Mills, David P. (2017).
"Molecular magnetic hysteresis at 60 kelvin in dysprosocenium" . Nature . 548 (7668): 439–442.
Bibcode :
2017Natur.548..439G .
doi :
10.1038/nature23447 .
ISSN
1476-4687 .
PMID
28836589 .
S2CID
4454501 .
^
"Software" . Retrieved 29 May 2020 .
^ Chilton, Nicholas; Collison, David; McInnes, Eric J. L.; Winpenny, Richard E. P.; Soncini, Alessandro (2013).
"An electrostatic model for the determination of magnetic anisotropy in dysprosium complexes" . Nature Communications . 4 : 2551.
Bibcode :
2013NatCo...4.2551C .
doi :
10.1038/ncomms3551 .
PMID
24096593 .
^ Chilton, Nicholas; Reta, Daniel (2019).
"Uncertainty estimates for magnetic relaxation times and magnetic relaxation parameters" . Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys . 21 (42): 23567–23575.
Bibcode :
2019PCCP...2123567R .
doi :
10.1039/C9CP04301B .
PMID
31620733 .
^
"Dr. Nicholas Chilton interview" . www.elsevier.com .
^ The European Institute of Molecular Magnetism.
"Olivier Kahn International Award" . Retrieved 29 May 2020 .
^
Royal Society of Chemistry .
"Dalton Young Researcher's Award" . Retrieved 29 May 2020 .
International Academics Other