Thermodynamics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Double mutant cycle (DMC) analyses can provide the interaction energies between amino acids at the interface of protein complexes. Here, the authors determine pairwise interaction energies using high-resolution native mass spectroscopy, offering a straightforward route for the DMC methodology.

    • Miri Sokolovski
    • , Jelena Cveticanin
    •  & Amnon Horovitz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    For monitoring hydrogen partial pressure, optical sensors have a particular safety advantage due to absence of wiring in operation area. Here authors show hysteresis-free, reproducible change in optical transmission in palladium-capped hafnium hydride films over six orders of magnitude in hydrogen partial pressure.

    • C. Boelsma
    • , L. J. Bannenberg
    •  & B. Dam

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Crowding effects—important when considering cellular environments—greatly influence protein stability. Here the authors study the impact of macromolecular crowders on high and low temperature protein unfolding, and show that volume exclusion effects are larger when the protein and crowder volumes are similar.

    • Caterina Alfano
    • , Domenico Sanfelice
    •  & Piero Andrea Temussi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The third law of thermodynamics, first formulated in 1912, states that any process cannot reach absolute zero temperature in finite time. Here, the authors derive the third law in the quantum regime as a bound on the resources necessary to cool a system to any temperature.

    • Lluís Masanes
    •  & Jonathan Oppenheim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many applications require hydrogen isotopes and so it is important to develop alternative separation technologies. Here, the authors report a metal-organic framework capable of capturing deuterium from H2/D2mixtures, and go on to predict selectivity for isotopologues containing tritium.

    • I. Weinrauch
    • , I. Savchenko
    •  & T. Heine

  • Article
    | Open Access

    With societies phasing down the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), alternative environmentally-friendly refrigerants are required. Here the authors screen a large chemical database for replacements, performing simulations to show there are only a few candidate single-component fluids that can realistically replace HFCs.

    • Mark O. McLinden
    • , J. Steven Brown
    •  & Piotr A. Domanski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Low thermal conductivities in nanomeshes have been attributed to both wave-like and particle-like behaviour of phonons. Here, the authors use periodicity-controlled silicon nanomeshes to show that the particle backscattering effect dominates for periodicities above 100 nm and temperatures above 14 K.

    • Jaeho Lee
    • , Woochul Lee
    •  & Peidong Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polymorph selection by synthesis conditions is common, important and mechanistically undercharacterized. Here authors show viaab initio calculations that surface energy effects on nucleation rate can explain how solution pH selects dominant forms of FeS2during hydrothermal synthesis.

    • Daniil A. Kitchaev
    •  & Gerbrand Ceder

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Describing thermodynamic processes, fluctuations of work are typically not considered bounded. Here the authors show that in some processes they diverge, making the processes unphysical, and construct a framework to quantify work extraction and work of formation of arbitrary quantum states with bounded fluctuations.

    • Jonathan G. Richens
    •  & Lluis Masanes

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Large methane hydrates reserves are found in mud volcanoes, but climate change may lead to methane release. Here, the authors show that methane adsorption creates overpressures leading to rapid recirculation of seawater, thus reducing the melting timescales of methane hydrates from millennia to decades.

    • Silvana S. S. Cardoso
    •  & Julyan H. E. Cartwright

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In thermodynamics, thermal properties of systems are obtained from averaging procedures which smooth out local details. Here, the authors introduce the concept of local quantum thermal susceptibility, a measure for the best achievable accuracy of estimation of temperature via local measurements.

    • Antonella De Pasquale
    • , Davide Rossini
    •  & Vittorio Giovannetti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In general, heating increases disorder and leads to the loss of magnetism in condensed matter. Here, the authors demonstrate that a normal metal can be magnetized by applying a temperature gradient during non-uniform heating when attached to a magnetic insulator.

    • Dazhi Hou
    • , Zhiyong Qiu
    •  & E. Saitoh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Molecules trapped between the layers of two-dimensional materials are thought to experience high pressure. Here, the authors report measurements of this interfacial pressure by capturing pressure-sensitive molecules and studying their structural changes, and show that it can also induce chemical reaction.

    • K. S. Vasu
    • , E. Prestat
    •  & R. R. Nair

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A central concept in thermodynamics is the thermal state, which is the one towards which the system relaxes. Here, the authors derive the same state, through three different approaches, in the case of a quantum system whose conserved quantities correspond to operators that do not commute with one another.

    • Nicole Yunger Halpern
    • , Philippe Faist
    •  & Andreas Winter

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The second law of thermodynamics constrains how much of a conserved quantity, such as energy, can be extracted from a system in the form of work. Here, the authors generalize this law to quantum systems whose conserved quantities need not commute, showing that it is their combination to be constrained.

    • Yelena Guryanova
    • , Sandu Popescu
    •  & Paul Skrzypczyk

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The second law of thermodynamics says that the efficiency of a heat engine is limited by the Carnot efficiency. Here, the authors use finite-size-scaling theory to investigate whether this ultimate limit can be achieved at finite power using quantum Otto engines.

    • Michele Campisi
    •  & Rosario Fazio

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solid–solid phase transition via an intermediate liquid state has been identified in colloidal systems, but the universality of the phenomenon at atomic scales has not yet been proved. Pogatscher et al.observe a similar transition in a metallic glass system using fast differential scanning calorimetry.

    • S. Pogatscher
    • , D. Leutenegger
    •  & J. F. Löffler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Phase transitions are often revealed by a discontinuous behaviour of thermodynamic quantities. Here, the authors study the thermodynamic behaviour of a trapped 2D photon gas, revealing critical behaviour at the phase transition through a cusp singularity of the specific heat.

    • Tobias Damm
    • , Julian Schmitt
    •  & Jan Klaers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Surface-mediated synthesis of low-dimensional polymers is a promising approach to design materials for targeted applications. Here, the authors introduce surface-confined thermally tunable pathways to select intra- or intermolecular reactions yielding monomeric or lowdimensional polymeric phthalocyanines.

    • Borja Cirera
    • , Nelson Giménez-Agulló
    •  & David Ecija

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The relaxation of closed macroscopic systems towards thermal equilibrium is an ubiquitous experimental fact, but very difficult to characterize theoretically. Here, the author establishes a quantitative description of such relaxation under arbitrary typical conditions, capturing well experimental data.

    • Peter Reimann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Vapour deposition on polycrystalline films can lead to unexpectedly high and reversible compressive stress, the origin of which remains unclear. Here, the authors show, using thermodynamic arguments, that entropic effects in the extremely dilute adatom gas on the surface play a major role.

    • Amirmehdi Saedi
    •  & Marcel J. Rost

  • Article
    | Open Access

    DNA hybridisation thermodynamics parameters underlie rational design of oligonucleotides for diagnostics and nanotechnology. Here, the authors present an accurate method to measure the free energy of a given DNA structure at specific temperature and buffer conditions.

    • Chunyan Wang
    • , Jin H. Bae
    •  & David Yu Zhang

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Water is the most common liquid in nature, with unusual properties that could be linked to the peculiar hydrogen-bonding network holding the molecules together. Here, Nilsson and Pettersson review recent progress in searching the connections between local configurations and thermodynamic responses of water.

    • Anders Nilsson
    •  & Lars G. M. Pettersson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many aspects of energy flow in nanostructures are not well understood due to difficulties associated with resolution. Here, Laraoui et al. use a diamond-nanocrystal-hosted nitrogen vacancy centre as a nanoscale probe with atomic force microscopy to image thermal conductivity.

    • Abdelghani Laraoui
    • , Halley Aycock-Rizzo
    •  & Carlos A. Meriles

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The understanding of complex electronic correlation and non-equilibrium atomic interactions is a grand challenge. Here, the authors show that chemical disorder in single-phase concentrated solid solution alloys can lead to reduction in electron mean free path and electrical and thermal conductivity.

    • Yanwen Zhang
    • , G. Malcolm Stocks
    •  & William J. Weber

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bubble generation during boiling is essential to power generation and heating/cooling systems, but it remains uncontrollable even with state-of-the-art surface engineering. Cho et al. electrostatically attract surfactants to the surface, on which bubble nucleation is manipulated in an on-demand manner.

    • H. Jeremy Cho
    • , Jordan P. Mizerak
    •  & Evelyn N. Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The two-dimensional material black phosphorus could find uses in energy applications. Here, the authors study the difference in in-plane thermal conductivity along the armchair and zigzag directions in suspended few-layer black phosphorus, and show the dependence of this anisotropy on sample thickness.

    • Zhe Luo
    • , Jesse Maassen
    •  & Xianfan Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The venom of the Chinese red-headed centipede causes excruciating pain. Here, Yanget al. identify a novel toxin protein from the centipede venom and find that it can activate the nociceptive TRPV1 ion channel by binding to the channel’s outer pore to potentiate the heat activation machinery.

    • Shilong Yang
    • , Fan Yang
    •  & Ren Lai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The composition of oxide compounds controls many of their properties and electronic phases. Here, the authors show that entropy and configurational disorder can stabilize new phases of oxides, potentially enabling a better engineering of their properties.

    • Christina M. Rost
    • , Edward Sachet
    •  & Jon-Paul Maria

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Membrane transporters transition between inward- and outward-facing conformations to translocate substrates across membranes but mechanistic details of this process remain scarce. Here Moradiet al. use an advanced molecular simulation approach to describe the complete thermodynamic cycle of the GlpT transporter at atomic-level detail.

    • Mahmoud Moradi
    • , Giray Enkavi
    •  & Emad Tajkhorshid

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Glass transition shows dramatic dynamic slowdown, but its origin remains unclear. Here, Xia et al. observe in granular systems the rapid growth of a geometrically frustrated polytetrahedral order with packing fraction, which is spatially correlated with the slow dynamics.

    • Chengjie Xia
    • , Jindong Li
    •  & Yujie Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The coupling between layers plays an important role in the properties of stacked two-dimensional materials. Here, the authors show that Coulomb interactions between electrons in different layers of graphene induce thermal transport even though all electronic states are confined to individual layers.

    • Momchil T. Mihnev
    • , John R. Tolsma
    •  & Theodore B. Norris

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recently, periodic arrays of thermally active nanomagnets with bistable magnetization have been built which mimic the behaviour of frustrated magnets and model Ising systems. Here, the authors use muon spin relaxation to evidence thermodynamic phase transitions in an artificial kagome ice system.

    • L. Anghinolfi
    • , H. Luetkens
    •  & L. J. Heyderman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cooling atoms and ions to the quantum ground state is generally achieved by resonantly coupling their mechanical motion to an electromagnetic wave. Here the authors report self-induced cooling based on sub-nanometre confinement with an electron beam, rather than an electromagnetic resonance.

    • A. Niguès
    • , A. Siria
    •  & P. Verlot

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The interplay between magnetic and superconducting phases is important to understand the physics of iron-based superconductivity. Here, the authors use thermodynamic measurements on Ba1−xKxFe2As2 single crystals to provide details of its phase diagram and the re-entrance of a C2spin-density-wave phase.

    • A. E. Böhmer
    • , F. Hardy
    •  & C. Meingast

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A linear energy–momentum relation of graphene results in a high direct-current electron mobility, but this is not necessarily true at terahertz frequencies. Here, the authors show that its ultrafast conductivity is dependent on a highly nonlinear interplay between heating and cooling of the electron gas.

    • Zoltán Mics
    • , Klaas-Jan Tielrooij
    •  & Dmitry Turchinovich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Irreversible computation cannot be performed without a work cost, and energy dissipation imposes limitations on devices' performances. Here the authors show that the minimal work requirement of logical operations is given by the amount of discarded information, measured by entropy.

    • Philippe Faist
    • , Frédéric Dupuis
    •  & Renato Renner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thermal operations, a model of thermodynamic processes for small quantum systems out of equilibrium, are well-understood in absence of coherence. Here the authors introduce cooling processes, a generalization of thermal operations and find necessary and sufficient conditions for coherent state transitions via cooling processes.

    • Varun Narasimhachar
    •  & Gilad Gour

  • Article |

    Electrons trapped to a two-dimensional plane can exhibit many exotic properties. Here, the authors use a technique that measures entropy per electron to explore the evolution of such a system from the Fermi liquid regime to a previously unexplored regime of a strongly correlated charged plasma.

    • A. Y. Kuntsevich
    • , Y. V. Tupikov
    •  & I. S. Burmistrov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The connection between information and thermodynamics is embodied in the figure of Maxwell’s demon, a feedback controller. Here, the authors apply thermodynamics of information to signal transduction in chemotaxis of E. coli, predicting that its robustness is quantified by transfer entropy.

    • Sosuke Ito
    •  & Takahiro Sagawa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The preparation of fully proton-ordered ice phases remains challenging and residual entropy usually remains even at the absolute zero. Here, the authors achieve a transition from disordered ice XII to fully ordered ice XIV triggered by HCl doping, which enhances proton transfer dynamics by five orders of magnitude.

    • K. W. Köster
    • , V. Fuentes-Landete
    •  & R. Böhmer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Obtaining activation entropies and enthalpies of a reaction is important for distinguishing between alternative reaction mechanisms. Here the authors use computational methods to accurately obtain the enthalpic/entropic components of the activation free energy for hydrolytic deamination reactions.

    • Masoud Kazemi
    •  & Johan Åqvist

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