Elliott Burnell
Professor
Chemistry
The University of British Columbia
Canada
Biography
B.Sc., Memorial (1965); M.Sc., Memorial (E. Bullock, 1968); Ph.D., Bristol (A.D. Buckingham, 1970); Postdoctoral, British Columbia (M. Bloom, 1969-71) and Basel (P. Diehl, 1971-72).
Research Interest
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has become an important technique for the study of molecular systems, and in recent years both liquid and solid type NMR experiments have been applied to ordered fluids, including liquid crystals, soaps, biological membranes, and solute molecules partially oriented in liquid-crystal solvents. Dr. Burnell's research exploits these NMR methods to investigate liquid crystalline systems. The normal single-quantum proton NMR spectra of partially oriented molecules often contain hundreds of lines. For example, the lower spectrum is that of a mixture of p-xylene, p-dichlorobenzene and 1,3,5-trichlorobenzene dissolved in a nematic liquid crystal.
