Water binding and hygroscopicity in π-conjugated polyelectrolytes.

The presence of water strongly influences structure, dynamics and properties of ion-containing soft matter. Yet, the hydration of such matter is not well understood. Here, we show through a large study of monovalent π-conjugated polyelectrolytes that their reversible hydration, up to several water molecules per ion pair, occurs chiefly at the interface between the ion clusters and the hydrophobic matrix without disrupting ion packing.

The Solvation Structure of Lithium Ions in an Ether Based Electrolyte Solution from First-Principles Molecular Dynamics.

The solvation and desolvation of the Li ion play a crucial role in the electrolytes of Li based secondary batteries, and their understanding at the microscopic level is of great importance. Oligoether (glyme) based electrolytes have attracted much attention as electrolytes used in Li based secondary batteries, such as Li-ion, Li-S, and Li-O batteries. However, the solvation structure of the Li ion in glyme based electrolytes has not been fully clarified yet.

The stability of aluminium oxide monolayer and its interface with two-dimensional materials.

The miniaturization of future electronic devices requires the knowledge of interfacial properties between two-dimensional channel materials and high-κ dielectrics in the limit of one atomic layer thickness. In this report, by combining particle-swarm optimization method with first-principles calculations, we present a detailed study of structural, electronic, mechanical, and dielectric properties of Al2O3 monolayer. We predict that planar Al2O3 monolayer is globally stable with a direct band gap of 5.

Magnetic hardening induced by nonmagnetic organic molecules.

We reveal for the first time through a theoretical first-principles study that the adsorption of a nonmagnetic π-conjugated organic molecule on a ferromagnetic surface locally increases the strength of the magnetic exchange interaction between the magnetic atoms binding directly to the molecule. This magnetic hardening effect leads to the creation of a local molecular mediated magnetic unit with a stable magnetization direction and an enhanced barrier for the magnetization switching as compared to the clean surface. Remarkably, such a hybrid organic-ferromagnetic system exhibits also a spin-filter functionality with sharp spin-split molecularlike electronic features at the molecular site.

First-principles insights into the electronic and magnetic structure of hybrid organic-metal interfaces.

In this review we summarize our experience gained from several recent ab initio studies aimed to investigate how the competition between short-ranged chemical and long-ranged dispersion interactions determines the bonding mechanism of a specific set of chemically functionalized π-conjugated organic molecules on non-magnetic and magnetic metal surfaces. A key point of this review is to provide a detailed analysis on the issue of how to tune the strength of the organic molecule-surface interaction, such that the nature of the molecular bonding exhibits the specific electronic features of the physisorption or chemisorption bonding mechanisms. In particular, we discuss in detail how the precise control of these bonding mechanisms can be used to design specific electronic and magnetic properties of hybrid organic-metallic interfaces.

Hybridisation at the organic-metal interface: a surface-scientific analogue of Hückel's rule?

We demonstrate that cyclooctatetraene (COT) can be stabilised in different conformations when adsorbed on different noble-metal surfaces due to varying molecule-substrate interactions. While at first glance the behaviour seems to be in accordance with Hückel's rule, a theoretical analysis reveals no significant charge transfer. The driving mechanism for the conformational change is hybridisation at the organic-metal interface and does not necessitate any charge transfer.

Ab initio and semi-empirical van der Waals study of graphene-boron nitride interaction from a molecular point of view.

We have performed a systematic semi-empirical and ab initio van der Waals study to investigate the bonding mechanism of benzene (C(6)H(6)), triazine (C(3)N(3)H(3)) and borazine (B(3)N(3)H(6)) adsorbed on graphene and a single boron nitride (BN) sheet. The two semi-empirical approaches used to include the van der Waals (vdW) interactions in our density functional theory (DFT) calculations suggest that the strength of the molecule-surface interaction corresponds to a strong physisorption with no net charge transfer between the molecules and the corresponding substrates. This observation is strengthened by the use of first-principles non-local correlation vdW-DF functionals which provide a sound physical basis to include vdW interactions in DFT calculations.