Photochemistry articles from across Nature Portfolio

Solar-driven oxidative coupling of methane is a promising approach to synthesize important C₂₊ products, yet poor efficiency limits its application. Now, a TiO₂ membrane loaded with Au nanoclusters, which act as hole acceptors and catalytic centres, achieves high yield and selectivity in C₂₊ production.

Introduction of a starch-based layer inhibits ion migration and repairs defects generated on light/dark cycles in perovskite solar cells. Cells retain 98.0% of the initial power conversion efficiency after 42 illumination cycles, and achieve a certified power conversion efficiency of 23.9%.

Carbon nanosolenoid materials with Riemann surfaces have unique structures and novel physical properties. Here, the authors report a nitrogen-doped carbon nanosolenoid heterojunction material with distinctive photocatalytic properties for light driven hydrogen production and organic transformations.

The 1,2 migration reaction on tetracoordinate boron species have been well investigated but less work looked on 1,2-boryl radical shift for the construction of organoborons. Here, the authors demonstrate a visible-light-induced photoredox neutral decarboxylative radical cross-coupling reaction, which undergoes a radical 1,2-boron shift to give a translocated C-radical for further capture of versatile radical acceptors

Producing valuable chemicals from carbon dioxide, water and sunlight through artificial conversion schemes remains a challenging and ambitious goal in photocatalysis. Here, the authors introduce an effective approach for the synthesis of C₂₊ compounds using a binary AuIr catalyst in combination with InGaN nanowires.

Emerged sustainable techniques for nitrogen fixation still lack ammonia yield rate to be practically relevant. Here, the authors demonstrate a laser–induced method to deliver a yield rate of 30.9 µmol s-1 cm−2 at ambient conditions, which is two orders of magnitude higher than other methods.

Solar-driven oxidative coupling of methane is a promising approach to synthesize important C₂₊ products, yet poor efficiency limits its application. Now, a TiO₂ membrane loaded with Au nanoclusters, which act as hole acceptors and catalytic centres, achieves high yield and selectivity in C₂₊ production.

Attosecond science is nowadays a well-established research field, and table-top attosecond sources based on high-harmonic generation are routinely used to access electronic motion in matter at its natural time scale. Here, the authors describe a new way of doing chemistry—attochemistry—by directly acting on the electronic motion, and discuss a few key open questions in this emerging field.

Although light-driven conversion of carbon dioxide receives widespread attention, it is also criticized due to the challenge of discerning true product formation from that of impurities. Now, significantly advanced guidelines for proper product identification have been developed, so we can better trust in what we see.