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We present the first copper iridium binary metal oxide with the chemical formula Cu2IrO3. The material is synthesized from the parent compound Na2IrO3 by a topotactic reaction where sodium is exchanged with copper under mild conditions. Cu2IrO3 has the same monoclinic space group (C2/c) as Na2IrO3 with a layered honeycomb structure. The parent compound Na2IrO3 is proposed to be relevant to the Kitaev spin liquid on the basis of having Ir4+ with an effective spin of 1/2 on a honeycomb lattice. Remarkably, whereas Na2IrO3 shows a long-range magnetic order at 15 K and fails to become a true spin liquid, Cu2IrO3 remains disordered until 2.7 K, at which point a short-range order develops. Rietveld analysis shows less distortions in the honeycomb structure of Cu2IrO3 with bond angles closer to 120° compared to Na2IrO3. Thus, the weak short-range magnetism combined with the nearly ideal honeycomb structure places Cu2IrO3 closer to a Kitaev spin liquid than its predecessors.

NMR thermometry has previously suffered from poor thermal resolution owing to the relatively weak dependence of chemical shift on temperature in diamagnetic molecules. In contrast, the shifts of nuclear spins near a paramagnetic center exhibit strong temperature dependencies. The chemical shifts of the thulium 1,4,7, 10-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7,10-tetrakis(methylene phosphonate) complex (TmDOTP5-) have been studied as a function of temperature, pH, and Ca2+ concentration over ranges which may be encountered in vivo. The results demonstrate that the 1H and 31P shifts in TmDOTP5- are highly sensitive to temperature and may be used for NMR thermometry with excellent accuracy and resolution. A new technique is also described which permits simultaneous measurements of temperature and pH changes from the shifts of multiple TmDOTP5- spectral lines.

The concentration dependence of the205Tl chemical shifts of Tl+ and of (CH3)2Tl+ ions was determined in several solvents with NO3− and ClO4− counterions. In general, increased ion pairing caused a low-frequency shift of the205Tl resonance, with the exceptions of (CH3)2TlNO3 inn-butylamine and TlNO3 in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) and in hexamethylphosphorotriamide (HMPA). In HMPA,205Tl linewidths of both Tl+ and (CH3)2Tl+ increased dramatically with dilution below 0.1M. Analysis of the data allowed ion-pair formation constants and205Tl chemical shifts for the ion-paired cation and for the free (solvated) cation to be estimated for some of the solvents.