Themed collection 10th Anniversary of the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Science

Amorphous nanomaterials have aroused extensive interest due to their unique properties. Their performance is highly related with their distinct atomic arrangements, which have no long-range order but possess short- to medium-range order.

We review the recent developments in the chemistry of transition-metal difluorocarbenes, including bonding and utility of MCF₂ complexes.

The design strategies and the gelation mechanism of poly(benzyl ether) dendritic gels, along with their potential applications, are discussed.

Synthesizing high value-added oxygenated chemicals through the oxidation process is a new and important research direction for high-quality conversion of methanol/DME.

The adsorption and catalytic performance of zeolites, dependent on the diffusion path, can be enhanced via precisely regulating their particle morphologies.

This feature article discusses the recent advances in the design strategies, structural features and applications of fluorescent probes for lipid droplets.

The facet effects of several important transition metal oxides in many chemical reactions are presented, and typical synthesis methods for their sharp-faced nanocrystals are summarized.

An overview of noble-metal based single-atom catalysts from catalyst compositions to reaction mechanisms for the water–gas shift reaction.

In this feature article, we summarise the recent developments in luminescent metal–organic frameworks, including their emission mechanisms and photonic applications ranging from photonic barcodes to miniaturized lasers.

This feature article focuses on the progress in catalytic asymmetric hydrogenation and transfer hydrogenation of O/N substituted arenes.

Inclusion of the most electronegative fluorine can regulate the distortion direction and magnitude of the structure, bandgap, and second-harmonic-generation (SHG) efficiency of materials effectively.

The controlled synthesis methods and the applications of nanoscale covalent organic frameworks in cancer therapy are summarized in this feature article.

The recent progress in the superlubricity mechanism and properties regulation of DLC films is introduced from the perspective of tribochemistry.

The synthesis and Pd-catalyzed cross-couplings of structure-modified (hetero)aryl germatranes and alkyl carbagermatranes have been established.

The recent progress in the synthesis and catalytic application of atomically dispersed metal catalysts on nanodiamond and its derivatives is systematically summarized.

Hybrid perovskite photonic synapses can be modulated with photoelectric signals, and have great potential for the development of artificial intelligence.

Polymer brushes have emerged as one of the most important means of surface modification. We summarise efficient methods for the fabrication of polymer brushes. In addition, we highlight the topology and potential applications of polymer brushes.

Endohedral metallofullerenes are fascinating materials. Recent progress on molecular structures and magnetic properties of metallofullerenes is summarized in this feature article.

We summarize the advances of polypeptide-based drug delivery systems that respond to various physiological stimuli for controlled drug delivery applications.

Fe-based single-atom nanozymes with multi-enzyme activities and excellent photothermal properties were synthesized for highly efficient parallel catalytic therapy and photothermal therapy.

Unavailable high loading of uranium with controllabe doping site on pyrochlore was achieved through molten salt synthesis.

The first C–H trifluoroethylamination of heteroarenes with N-trifluoroethyl hydroxylamine reagents under photoredox catalysis has been described.

The multilayered catalyst 1.91%Pt@TiO₂ with atomically dispersed Pt clusters shows excellent performance in the semi-hydrogenation of phenylacetylene.

A Ruddlesden–Popper hybrid perovskite was assembled by confining secondary ammonium cations into the inorganic framework, for which 2D quantum-well motifs render a fascinating photoresponse and effective photodetection properties.

The highly selective synthesis of various middle distillate fuels including gasoline, jet fuel and diesel range hydrocarbons is achieved for hierarchical ZSM-5 zeolite supported cobalt catalysts with different cobalt particle sizes for syngas conversion.

The selectivity of C2 hydrocarbons reached 98.1%, along with the methane conversion of 8.6% over Mo1Sn3 catalyst. The deep oxidation of methane to CO₂ was significantly inhibited due to the moderately strong basic sites and reactive oxygen species.

Presented herein is the synthesis of a heterometallic hybrid compound used as a candidate for third-order nonlinear optical (NLO) materials.

A bimetallic CoPd alloy modified NiAl-LDH achieved enhanced syngas production by adjusting the Schottky barrier height to facilitate the separation and transfer of charge carriers and optimize the active sites for CO₂ and H₂O activation.

We explored the mechanism of ethylene combustion by combining a density functional tight-binding based nanoreactor molecular dynamic method (DFTB-NMD) and a hidden Markov model (HMM) based reaction network generator approach.

We experimentally demonstrated that spatial charge separation can take place between the {010} and {001} facets of Bi₂WO₆ microplates.

We demonstrate the diatomic molecule sublimation mechanism of GeSe and GeS through a detailed theoretical and experimental investigation.

The chiral exciton couplings within a Y-shaped amphiphilic glutamide-cyanostilbene could be significantly biased by solvent polarity and hydration effect, which led to sign inversion of both CD and CPL of its assemblies.

Herein we report a 2D surface-coordinated porphyrinic metal–organic framework film (SURMOF) CuTCPP prepared by a layer by layer method as an optical limiting layer in a polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) device.

The nitrogen-based complex hydride Li–N–H has positive thermodynamic isotope effects with a separation factor of 1.42.

Here, a new polymer named PBTT-C4 was designed based on carboxylate-functionalized thieno[3,2-b]thiophene units. Both pure polymer and its blend film with acceptors possess high luminescent properties, which is beneficial to the decrease of voltage loss.

A cobalt magnesium oxide solid solution (Co–Mg–O) supported LiH catalyst has been synthesized, in which LiH functions both as a strong reductant for the in situ formation of Co metal nanoparticles and a key active component for ammonia synthesis catalysis.

Tertiary cyclopropyl carbagermatranes acting as robust nucleophiles for the synthesis of cyclopropane with quaternary centers.

Highly selective Pd-catalyzed double alkenylation-iodo migration cascade reaction of diiodo-o-carboranes has been developed, leading to the one-pot tetrafunctionalization of o-carboranes with sequential activation of two cage B–I and two B–H bonds.

The strengthened Cu–Zr interactions in FSP-Cu/ZrO₂ were beneficial for the adsorption of bi-HCOO* and the generation of methoxy species (*OCH₃) at the interface by enhancing Cu⁺ species and Ov compared to the one made by the traditional method.

Four new sulfate tellurites have been found from d¹⁰ Metal–Te⁴⁺–SO₄²⁻ systems and the mercury compound, Hg₃(Te₃O₈)(SO₄), exhibits the largest birefringence among the reported metal sulfate tellurites to date.

Asymmetric allylic C–H alkylation of 1,4-pentadienes with α-angelica lactones has been developed by tri-axial phosphoramidite-palladium catalysis.

A cascade Ir-catalyzed asymmetric allylic daromatization/ring-expansive migration reaction affords tetrahydropyrrolo[1,2-c]pyrimidine derivatives in good yields with high enantioselectivity.

A tumor-targeted near-infrared fluorescent probe has been developed for monitoring the intratumoral release of HNO from its donors in vivo.

Two cage-based absolute helices were prepared in achiral reaction systems. The presence of appropriate chiral inducers can control the helical orientation of bulk samples, which further act on the separation of racemic 1-phenylethanol.