Synthesis of a biphenylene nanoribbon by compressing biphenylene under extreme conditions.

Nonbenzenoid graphene nanoribbons such as biphenylene networks have gained increasing attention owing to their promising electronic and transport properties, but their scalable synthesis is still a huge challenge. Pressure-induced topochemical polymerization is an effective method to assemble molecular units into extended carbon materials, and the structure and properties of the carbon material can be tuned by modifying its molecular precursors. Herein, by directly compressing biphenylene at room temperature, we successfully synthesized crystalline biphenylene nanoribbons in milligram scale.

Solid-State Alder-Ene Reaction of 1-Hexene under High Pressure.

The Alder-ene reaction is a chemical reaction between an alkene with an allylic hydrogen, and it provides an efficient method to construct the C-C bond. Traditionally, this reaction requires catalysts, high temperatures, or photocatalysis. In this study, we reported a high-pressure-induced solid-state Alder-ene reaction of 1-hexene at room temperature without a catalyst.

Pressure-induced polymerization of 1,4-difluorobenzene towards fluorinated diamond nanothreads.

Pressure-induced polymerization (PIP) of aromatic molecules has emerged as an effective method for synthesizing various carbon-based materials. The selection of suitable functionalized molecular precursors is crucial for obtaining the desired structures and functions. In this work, 1,4-difluorobenzene (1,4-DFB) was selected as the building block for PIP.

Brightening triplet excitons enable high-performance white-light emission in organic small molecules via integrating n-π*/π-π* transitions.

Luminescent materials that simultaneously embody bright singlet and triplet excitons hold great potential in optoelectronics, signage, and information encryption. However, achieving high-performance white-light emission is severely hampered by their inherent unbalanced contribution of fluorescence and phosphorescence. Herein, we address this challenge by pressure treatment engineering via the hydrogen bonding cooperativity effect to realize the mixture of n-π*/π-π* transitions, where the triplet state emission was boosted from 7% to 40% in isophthalic acid (IPA).