This 5 slides about outlines the basics of lanthanide photophysics as a primer for those new to the topic.  These properties are very unique and actually very useful, which is a topic for another time.  The intricacies of what causes the Ln luminescence, its strengths and drawbacks are discussed along with how these drawbacks are addressed in molecular complexes.  Notes for the instructor are included that explain each slide.

chapter 1 of George Stanley's Organometallics course: Introduction, Orbitals, Electron counting

This chapter is an overview of the field, with an emphasis on electron counting

The powerpoint slides contain answers to some of the in-class exercises, so those are behind the "faculty only" wall. I shares these with students after the class, but not before.

everyone is more than welcome to edit the materials to suit their own uses, and I would appreciate being notified of any mistakes that are found.


This is a short presentation that outlines the major chemical reactions of soapmaking. Included are instructions for making two soaps, one from canola oil, the other from coconut oil. These two soaps have very different hardnesses, which can be explained by examining the structures of the oils. If you have never made soap before, it isn't that difficult, but it does use concentrated NaOH so is very caustic before the reaction is done. The linked websited have good instructions for soapmaking as well.