Reaction kinetics and dynamics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Charge generation and transport are crucial to the performance of organic solar cells, but the mechanism remains controversial. Causa’ et al. show that the phase morphology of polymer:fullerene blends determines the exciton dissociation at femtoseconds, although the spatial separation can occur at picoseconds.

    • Martina Causa'
    • , Jelissa De Jonghe-Risse
    •  & Natalie Banerji

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Aerosol droplets have significant effects on atmospheric photochemistry, however measuring absorption from single droplets is a challenge. Here, the authors report a method to measure absorption of nanodroplets with attolitre sensitivity, showing rate enhancements for light focusing in photolysis reactions.

    • Johannes W. Cremer
    • , Klemens M. Thaler
    •  & Ruth Signorell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The excitation of metal nanoparticles with light can lead to localized surface plasmon resonances, capable of driving chemical reactions in bound species. Here, the authors elucidate this mechanism and suggest that future plasmonic catalysts may be able to selectively activate specific chemical bonds.

    • Calvin Boerigter
    • , Robert Campana
    •  & Suljo Linic

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hot electrons—electrons with very high kinetic energies—are important in many processes but difficult to observe due to their short lifetimes. Here, the authors analyse STM based nonlocal manipulation of organic molecules on a surface, showing that the measurements probe hot electron dynamics in real space.

    • D. Lock
    • , K. R. Rusimova
    •  & P. A. Sloan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Surface recombination velocity can have a major impact on solar cell performance. Here, Yanget al. measure surface recombination dynamics in perovskite single crystals using broadband transient reflectance spectroscopy. Grain size is crucial to avoid the effects of surface recombination on carrier lifetime.

    • Ye Yang
    • , Yong Yan
    •  & Matthew C. Beard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is imperative to understand how individual Si nanostructures interact in battery operations. Here, the authors design well-defined crystalline Si nanopillars and show how mechanical interactions of neighbouring Si structures affect their reaction kinetics and fracture resistance during electrochemical lithiation.

    • Seok Woo Lee
    • , Hyun-Wook Lee
    •  & Yi Cui

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The equivalency of stress and temperature as driving force for the relaxation in metallic glasses is widely accepted. Here, Yu et al.examine this assumption in simulations and find that stress induces a fragile-to-strong transition in addition to accelerated relaxation dynamics as temperature does.

    • Hai-Bin Yu
    • , Ranko Richert
    •  & Konrad Samwer

  • Article |

    Breaking chemical bonds with mechanical force can be a useful route to modify chemical species, but studying the process in detail can be challenging. Here, the authors use atomic force microscopy to apply pressure and monitor bond cleavage on chemically modified graphene.

    • Jonathan R. Felts
    • , Andrew J. Oyer
    •  & Paul E. Sheehan

  • Article |

    Molecular core levels are localized around a single atomic site, but for indistinguishable atoms, photoionised core-holes can either be seen as localized or delocalized. Using a prototypical symmetric system, CS2, Guillemin et al. show that these states can be disentangled by fragmentation dynamics.

    • R. Guillemin
    • , P. Decleva
    •  & M. Simon

  • Article |

    Grain boundaries between crystalline domains in solution-processed organic semiconductor thin films are believed to inhibit charge transport, but their structure is invisible to conventional characterization techniques. Wong et al. show the existence of nano-crystalline aggregates at domain interfaces.

    • Cathy Y. Wong
    • , Benjamin L. Cotts
    •  & Naomi S. Ginsberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite the technological relevance of molecular thin films, there is limited understanding of their growth on a molecular level. Here, the authors characterize the relevant processes in real time and determine energy parameters using a combination of X-ray techniques and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations.

    • S. Bommel
    • , N. Kleppmann
    •  & S. Kowarik

  • Article |

    The organization of ions at solid–liquid interfaces is of interest in many fields, but little information at the nanoscale is available. Here, the authors report atomic-level observations of ordering of ions at surfaces in solutions, which is driven by water instead of the conventional electrostatic correlations.

    • Maria Ricci
    • , Peter Spijker
    •  & Kislon Voïtchovsky

  • Article |

    Chemical reactions are typically composed of a number of elementary steps, but elucidating these steps is a challenge, particularly in the condensed phase. Here, the authors use quantum chemical calculations and single-molecule spectroscopy to unravel the details of a reversible redox process.

    • Yuwei Zhang
    • , Ping Song
    •  & Weilin Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carbon monoxide clathrate hydrate has been widely studied and although the structure-II gas hydrate is predicted to be thermodynamically favourable, it is the structure-I hydrate that has been observed. Here, the authors synthesize the structure-II carbon monoxide hydrate and probe its structure and formation.

    • Jinlong Zhu
    • , Shiyu Du
    •  & Yusheng Zhao

  • Article |

    The surface chemistry of aqueous solutions plays a ubiquitous role in many chemical and biological processes. Here, the authors probe the surfaces of sodium halide solutions with surface-specific femtosecond vibrational spectroscopy, and observe surface concentrations of halide ions several times greater than in the bulk.

    • Lukasz Piatkowski
    • , Zhen Zhang
    •  & Mischa Bonn

  • Article |

    Desorption kinetics cannot be simply described by the standard method, the temperature-programmed desorption. Here, Günther et al.use low-energy electron microscopy to image an adsorbate layer during desorption, and propose a model that quantitatively explains the complex desorption process.

    • S. Günther
    • , T. O. Menteş
    •  & J. Wintterlin

  • Article |

    The final state of self-assembled systems is determined by both their thermodynamic and kinetic pathways. Di Michele et al.develop a strategy to realize predesigned amorphous structures of complex DNA colloidal mixtures by selectively activating local inter- or intra-species interactions upon freezing.

    • Lorenzo Di Michele
    • , Francesco Varrato
    •  & Erika Eiser

  • Article |

    Monitoring the impact of annealing on nanometre-thick polymer layers provides new insight into the changes in the performance of macromolecular materials. Here, the authors present results showing a correlation between the deviations from bulk behaviour and the growth of an irreversibly adsorbed layer.

    • Simone Napolitano
    •  & Michael Wübbenhorst

  • Article |

    Defining the structure of amorphous solids is a challenge because of their lack of structural order. In this study, the authors combine experiment and theory to analyse the surface of amorphous selenium, and show that the differences between surface and bulk are attributable to a particular type of coordination defect.

    • T. Scopigno
    • , W. Steurer
    •  & T. Wagner

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