Physical chemistry articles within Nature

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  • News & Views |

    A technique called surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy can detect tiny quantities of compounds in solution, but has been difficult to use for quantitative analysis. A digital approach involving nanoparticles suggests a way forward.

    • Peter J. Vikesland

  • Article |

    We report a strategy that yields thermally and hydrothermally stable silicates by expansion of a one-dimensional silicate chain with an intercalated silylating agent that separates and connects the chains.

    • Zihao Rei Gao
    • , Huajian Yu
    •  & Miguel A. Camblor

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The use of mega-electronvolt ultrafast electron diffraction combined with resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization yields data that can reveal the formation and subsequent structural relaxation of a molecular ion on an ultrafast timescale.

    • Jun Heo
    • , Doyeong Kim
    •  & Hyotcherl Ihee

  • Article |

    The initial steps of the ion solvation process are observed for the solvation of a single sodium ion in liquid helium, opening possibilities for benchmarking theoretical descriptions of ion solvation.

    • Simon H. Albrechtsen
    • , Constant A. Schouder
    •  & Henrik Stapelfeldt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    We report a small-organic-molecule oscillator that catalyses an independent chemical reaction in situ without impairing its oscillating properties, allowing the construction of complex systems enhancing applications in automated synthesis and systems and polymerization chemistry.

    • Matthijs ter Harmsel
    • , Oliver R. Maguire
    •  & Syuzanna R. Harutyunyan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    We report organic molecules showing both efficient luminescence and near-unity generation yield of excited states with high spin multiplicity, simultaneously supporting a high efficiency of initialization, spin manipulations and light-based readout at room temperature.

    • Sebastian Gorgon
    • , Kuo Lv
    •  & Emrys W. Evans

  • Article |

    Many aspects of materials chemistry rely on singlet–triplet spin conversion, but spin–vibronic effects are shown to accelerate the process when vibronic coupling causes the quantum-mechanical mixing of spin states.

    • Shahnawaz R. Rather
    • , Nicholas P. Weingartz
    •  & Lin X. Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Raman and fluorescence spectra, consistent with several species of aromatic organic molecules, are reported in the Crater Floor sequences of Jezero crater, Mars, suggesting multiple mechanisms of organic synthesis, transport, or preservation.

    • Sunanda Sharma
    • , Ryan D. Roppel
    •  & Anastasia Yanchilina

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The potential of water-window X-ray absorption spectroscopy for disentangling individual aspects of the respective electronic and structural dynamics in ultrafast non-adiabatic dynamics of molecular systems in a liquid environment is established.

    • Zhong Yin
    • , Yi-Ping Chang
    •  & Hans Jakob Wörner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using a heralded single-photon source along with coincidence counting, we establish time correlation functions for B800 excitation and B850 fluorescence emission and demonstrate that both events involve single photons.

    • Quanwei Li
    • , Kaydren Orcutt
    •  & K. Birgitta Whaley

  • Article |

    Using a specialized tip as a detector, the fingerprints of a single atom of iron and terbium are observed in synchrotron X-ray absorption spectra, allowing elemental and chemical characterization one atom at a time.

    • Tolulope M. Ajayi
    • , Nozomi Shirato
    •  & Saw-Wai Hla

  • Article |

    Tracking the formation of cubic ice (ice Ic) using transmission electron microscopy and low-dose imaging shows preferential nucleation of ice Ic at low-temperature interfaces and two types of stacking disorder.

    • Xudan Huang
    • , Lifen Wang
    •  & Xuedong Bai

  • Article |

    By using in vivo ultrafast TA spectroscopy, extraction of electrons directly from photoexcited PSI and PSII in cyanobacterial cells using exogenous electron mediators is demonstrated.

    • Tomi K. Baikie
    • , Laura T. Wey
    •  & Jenny Z. Zhang

  • Article |

    The proton-transfer tunnelling reaction rate between H2 and D– has been measured as about 1 out of 1011 collisions, making it the slowest rate constant ever measured for an ion–molecule reaction in the gas phase.

    • Robert Wild
    • , Markus Nötzold
    •  & Roland Wester

  • News & Views |

    The study of how chemical reactions work is key to the design of new reactions, but relies on hard work and expert knowledge. A machine-learning tool has been developed that could change the way this challenge is approached.

    • Danilo M. Lustosa
    •  & Anat Milo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Measurements of  isomerization rates  of CO isotopologues on an NaCl surface show a nonmonotonic mass dependence that arises from  resonantly enhanced cross-barrier coupling, or ‘tunnelling gateways’, which  are intrinsic to condensed-phase tunnelling.

    • Arnab Choudhury
    • , Jessalyn A. DeVine
    •  & Alec M. Wodtke

  • News & Views |

    The movement of electric charges in light-activated catalyst particles is key to the water-splitting reaction, which could be used to generate hydrogen as a renewable fuel. Such movement has now been observed in exquisite detail.

    • Ulrich Aschauer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A fluorescent molecule is described that does not follow Hund’s rule and instead shows singlet and triplet excited states with inverted energy levels, leading to high-efficiency OLEDs with potential implications for optoelectronic devices.

    • Naoya Aizawa
    • , Yong-Jin Pu
    •  & Daigo Miyajima

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pressures of up to 900 gigapascals (9 million atmospheres) are achieved in a laser-heated double-stage diamond cell, enabling the synthesis of Re7N3, and materials characterization is performed in situ using single-crystal X-ray diffraction.

    • Leonid Dubrovinsky
    • , Saiana Khandarkhaeva
    •  & Natalia Dubrovinskaia

  • Article |

    Atomic-level imaging of photocurrents in a single molecule is achieved by combining a tunable laser with scanning tunnelling microscopy, revealing how photons turn into electric current via a photoexcited molecule.

    • Miyabi Imai-Imada
    • , Hiroshi Imada
    •  & Yousoo Kim

  • Article |

    Serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) has provided significant understanding of time-resolved processes of various systems in biology, for example, rhodopsin, which underlies our vision. The approach involves femtosecond-length X-ray pulses directed at protein crystals and has been used to study various photoactive proteins. However, the function of proteins such as rhodopsin requires trans–cis isomerization of a chromophore, which involves crossing of a conical intersection—a funnel separating potential energy surfaces—at timescales faster than what can be achieved experimentally. Here, Ourmazd and colleagues report a machine learning analysis of SFX data of photoactive yellow protein, which resolves the protein passing through a conical intersection, providing information about the potential energy surfaces involved and achieving time resolution of less than 10 fs. This approach offers an opportunity to understand some of the fastest processes in biology by extracting even more information from SFX datasets.

    • A. Hosseinizadeh
    • , N. Breckwoldt
    •  & A. Ourmazd

  • Article |

    Optical imaging of single-molecule electrochemical reactions in aqueous solution enables super-resolution electrochemiluminescence microscopy, which can be used to monitor the adhesion dynamics of live cells with high spatiotemporal resolution.

    • Jinrun Dong
    • , Yuxian Lu
    •  & Jiandong Feng

  • Article |

    Spectroscopic measurements confirm that when water is adsorbed on drops of an alkali alloy at low pressure a gold-coloured metallic layer forms as electrons rapidly move from the drop into the water.

    • Philip E. Mason
    • , H. Christian Schewe
    •  & Pavel Jungwirth

  • Article |

    Ligand-protected gold nanoclusters are engineered to form complex arrangements of double and quadruple helices, which are based on the pairing of motifs on neighbouring enantiomers, akin to the base pairing seen in DNA double helices.

    • Yingwei Li
    • , Meng Zhou
    •  & Rongchao Jin

  • Article |

    Experimental measurements of vibrational sum-frequency generation spectra indicate that the dielectric response of water near an electrode may be strongly asymmetric, with different responses to positive and negative electrode charge.

    • Angelo Montenegro
    • , Chayan Dutta
    •  & Alexander V. Benderskii

  • Article |

    An einsteinium coordination complex is synthesized and spectroscopically characterized using less than 200 nanograms of einsteinium, enabling examination of its structure and measurement of an einsteinium bond distance.

    • Korey P. Carter
    • , Katherine M. Shield
    •  & Rebecca J. Abergel

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