Physical chemistry articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Due to the delocalization of molecular orbitals, valence-shell spectroscopy does not allow distinction between individual atoms. Here, the authors show that for photoionization, the difference in mass—and hence recoil momentum—between atoms in a diatomic molecule allows site-selective emission to be observed.

    • Catalin Miron
    • , Quan Miao
    •  & Faris Gel'mukhanov

  • Article |

    Attempts have been made in flowing liquids over carbon nanomaterials to generate electric voltages, but a convincing or significant voltage is yet to be obtained. Here, Yin et al.show an electrokinetic process in which an electric potential of 0.1 V is generated in graphene by a moving liquid–gas boundary.

    • Jun Yin
    • , Zhuhua Zhang
    •  & Wanlin Guo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Droplet chemistry is less susceptible to channel-fouling than single-phase flow chemistry, but is largely limited to simple reactions where all reagents are preloaded into droplets. Here, the authors report a method for multistep chemistry in droplets, using two immiscible liquids and a gas to achieve controlled, sequential reagent addition.

    • Adrian M. Nightingale
    • , Thomas W. Phillips
    •  & John C. de Mello

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chiral determination of vapours is possible in biological systems as an important part of the olfactory system. Here, the authors describe a system that is capable of visually detecting and distinguishing the chirality of vapour-phase molecules by structural changes in a liquid crystal confined in open microchannels.

    • Takuya Ohzono
    • , Takahiro Yamamoto
    •  & Jun-ichi Fukuda

  • Article |

    It is difficult to spatially resolve molecular orbitals of molecules on highly reactive semiconductor surfaces. Here, Xu et al.use scanning tunnelling microscopy to study pyridazine molecules on a clean germanium surface, and hybridized molecular orbitals are directly imaged.

    • Jing Hui He
    • , Wei Mao
    •  & Eng Soon Tok

  • Article |

    Typically for surface adsorption there is a direct relationship between interaction strength and geometric distance—a stronger interaction leads to a shorter distance between interacting objects. Here the authors show a case where a stronger interaction leads to a larger distance, and explain this apparent paradox.

    • Benjamin Stadtmüller
    • , Daniel Lüftner
    •  & Christian Kumpf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The oxidation state of hydride ions in oxide hosts is a matter of debate. Here, the authors address this question with a range of techniques and suggest that the electron density near an incorporated hydride ion is less than that at the hydrogen in a hydroxide ion, contrary to formal valence arguments.

    • Katsuro Hayashi
    • , Peter V. Sushko
    •  & Hideo Hosono

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Studying the high pressure phase diagram of hydrogen experimentally or by simulations presents significant challenges. Here, the authors apply a combined molecular dynamics and many-body quantum Monte Carlo approach, finding that the molecular liquid phase is stable at higher pressures than previously believed.

    • Guglielmo Mazzola
    • , Seiji Yunoki
    •  & Sandro Sorella

  • Article |

    Colloidal particles may experience a long-range force because of the confinement of solvent fluctuations. Gnan et al.show numerically that such Casimir-like effect also occurs when colloids are immersed in a chemical sol close to percolation, which provides an alternative way to tune colloidal interactions.

    • Nicoletta Gnan
    • , Emanuela Zaccarelli
    •  & Francesco Sciortino

  • Article |

    Isotopic substitution alters the optoelectronic properties of conducting polymers, but a microscopic understanding is still missing. Shao et al.address this effect using a series of polymer isotopes that are synthesized with deuterium atoms substituted either on their backbone or side chains.

    • Ming Shao
    • , Jong Keum
    •  & Kai Xiao

  • Article |

    Typically dispersion forces are weak interactions, and host–guest chemistry is dominated by more powerful events such as hydrogen bonding. Here, the authors show extremely high binding between a modified marine peptide and chloroform, driven by dispersion interactions with the chlorine atoms.

    • Gebhard Haberhauer
    • , Áron Pintér
    •  & Sascha Woitschetzki

  • Article |

    Solid contacts on a microscopic level are widely described by a classical contact mechanics theory. Here Styleet al.show that this theory breaks down when a small particle adheres to a soft surface where a fluid-like behaviour is observed because of the predominant role played by surface tension.

    • Robert W. Style
    • , Callen Hyland
    •  & Eric R. Dufresne

  • Article |

    Understanding the anisotropic electronic structure of lanthanide complexes is useful for a range of advanced applications. Here, the authors present a simple electrostatic method, capable of predicting the magnetic anisotropy of low-symmetry mononuclear and polynuclear dysprosium(III) complexes.

    • Nicholas F. Chilton
    • , David Collison
    •  & Alessandro Soncini

  • Article |

    In chemical reactions, inner barriers, which precede the rate-determining transition state, are kinetically invisible but mechanistically significant. On an example of reduction of macrocyclic disulphides, the authors quantify these inner barriers by studying the reaction rate as a function of applied force.

    • Yancong Tian
    • , Timothy J. Kucharski
    •  & Roman Boulatov

  • Article |

    Methane is a major constituent of planetary interiors, yet phase relations in the C–H system are poorly understood. This work documents the chemical reactivity of the C–H system over a wide range of temperatures and pressures, and sheds light on the chemical composition of Earth and icy giants.

    • Sergey S. Lobanov
    • , Pei-Nan Chen
    •  & Alexander F. Goncharov

  • Article |

    Membrane-less electrochemical systems eliminate the need for costly ion-exchange membranes, but typically suffer from low-power densities. Braff et al.propose a hydrogen bromine laminar flow battery, which rivals the performance of the best membrane-based systems.

    • William A. Braff
    • , Martin Z. Bazant
    •  & Cullen R. Buie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrically insulating ligands and doping of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals continue to be significant challenges for practical nanocrystal-based optoelectronics. Wheeler et al.demonstrate a new surface chemistry technique that confronts both of these challenges simultaneously.

    • Lance M. Wheeler
    • , Nathan R. Neale
    •  & Uwe R. Kortshagen

  • Article |

    Ultrafast laser pulses are useful to study electron dynamics in chemical bonds, but their influence on bond breaking is not fully understood. Wu et al. study H2 bond breaking with coincidence techniques, and find a phase-dependent anisotropy of the H+fragmentation even for isotropic multicycle laser pulses.

    • J. Wu
    • , M. Magrakvelidze
    •  & R. Dörner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many interesting chemical problems like photosynthesis and photovoltaics involve non-adiabatic dynamical phenomena, which are difficult to predict theoretically. Here, the authors develop a new numerical method capable of recovering quantum interferences that are neglected by conventional methods.

    • Vyacheslav N. Gorshkov
    • , Sergei Tretiak
    •  & Dmitry Mozyrsky

  • 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
    | Open Access

    Nonvolatile luminescent liquids are solvent-free fluids with a range of flexible electronic applications. Here, the authors show that anthracenes enveloped in branched aliphatic compounds are stable emissive liquids, with emissive and thermoresponsive properties that may be tuned by addition of dopants.

    • Sukumaran Santhosh Babu
    • , Martin J. Hollamby
    •  & Takashi Nakanishi

  • Article |

    Noble metallic subnanometre clusters exhibit superior catalytic activities, but their stability remains a problem. Zhang et al. report that single niobium atoms can be stabilized in graphitic layers and the resulting carbide complex exhibits higher activity compared with commercial platinum nanoclusters.

    • Xuefeng Zhang
    • , Junjie Guo
    •  & Matthew F. Chisholm

  • Article |

    Classical theory predicts that glass dynamics exhibit a singularity at some finite temperature. Zhao et al. test this theory in fossil amber by determining upper bounds of the equilibrium relaxation times, and find no such behaviour even far below the glass transition challenging conventional assumptions.

    • Jing Zhao
    • , Sindee L. Simon
    •  & Gregory B. McKenna

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chiral molecules form one-handed supramolecular assemblies but may be induced to switch to the other handed assembly, although the mechanisms driving these processes are unclear. Here, the authors demonstrate control of the supramolecular assembly handedness via the introduction of achiral counter ions.

    • Toshiyuki Sasaki
    • , Ichiro Hisaki
    •  & Mikiji Miyata

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The original definition of a memristor envisions a two-terminal memory device with a pinched, zero-crossing hysteresis loop. As the authors show here, an electromotive force leads to non-zero-crossing characteristics in nanoionic-type memristors, implying that the memristor definition must be amended.

    • I. Valov
    • , E. Linn
    •  & R. Waser

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polymers are good potential processable materials for electronic components; however, their charge mobilities are quite low. Here, the authors show that wrapping polymers with macrocycles and localization of π-orbitals realizes an ideal orbital alignment for charge hopping with subsequently increased mobility.

    • Jun Terao
    • , Akihisa Wadahama
    •  & Yasushi Tsuji

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In artificial photosynthetic devices, conversion of light into electricity is thought to involve an incoherent electron transfer process. Rozzi et al.provide evidence for quantum-correlated wavelike motion inducing the ultrafast photoinduced electronic charge transfer in a light-harvesting supramolecular triad.

    • Carlo Andrea Rozzi
    • , Sarah Maria Falke
    •  & Christoph Lienau

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Transistors that operate by the passage of electrons through a single-dopant atom achieve the ultimate limit for the miniaturization of electronic devices, but only when multiple transistors are intimately connected can they become useful. Roche et al. demonstrate the equivalent of just this, connecting two such transistors to build a two-atom electron pump.

    • B. Roche
    • , R.-P. Riwar
    •  & X. Jehl

  • Article |

    Colloids consist of small particles distributed in another medium such as liquids or gases. Here, the demonstration that forces arising from the critical Casimir effect can control the interaction between particles offers new possibilities for the formation of colloidal nanostructures.

    • Van Duc Nguyen
    • , Suzanne Faber
    •  & Peter Schall

  • Article |

    The hardness and incompressibility of diamond makes it an ideal material for high-pressure anvil cells. Here, a method for generating static pressure is described in which graphene-coated diamond is heated, forming graphene nanobubbles that trap water at pressures sufficient to etch the surface of diamond.

    • Candy Haley Yi Xuan Lim
    • , Anastassia Sorkin
    •  & Kian Ping Loh

  • Article |

    Charge carrier mobility in molecular condensate is usually limited to small values by disorder and small intermolecular coupling. This work shows band dispersion of molecular states when hybridized with a metal substrate, resulting in enhanced carrier mobility.

    • M. Wießner
    • , J. Ziroff
    •  & F. Reinert

  • Article |

    Materials with magnetic dipoles commonly form the building blocks of complex structures at many different length scales. Yan et al. show that by using cylindrical magnetic Janus colloids, greater control over the shape of the hierarchical structures formed by self-assembly can be achieved.

    • Jing Yan
    • , Kundan Chaudhary
    •  & Steve Granick

  • Article |

    Electricity can be generated by moving wires in magnetic fields, but this is not the only method. Moon et al. develop an electrochemical device that produces an AC current in a controlled manner by mechanically modulating water bridges sandwiched between two conducting plates.

    • Jong Kyun Moon
    • , Jaeki Jeong
    •  & Hyuk Kyu Pak

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