Cu-metalated carbyne acting as a promising molecular wire

Bottom-Up Synthesis of Metalated Carbyne Ribbons via Elimination Reactions

Elimination reactions are one of the most important reactions in organic synthesis, especially in the formation of alkenes and alkynes. Herein, based on scanning tunneling microscopy, we report the bottom-up synthesis of one-dimensional carbyne-like nanostructures, metalated carbyne ribbons with the incorporation of Cu or Ag atoms, through α- and β-elimination reactions of tetrabromomethane and hexabromoethane on surfaces. Density functional theory calculations demonstrate a width-dependent band gap modulation within these ribbon structures, which is affected by interchain interactions. Moreover, mechanistic insights into the on-surface elimination reactions have also been provided in this study.

Atomistic simulations of the equation of state and hybridization of liquid carbon at a temperature of 6000 K in the pressure range of 1-25 GPa

The equation of state and the structure of liquid carbon are studied by molecular simulation. Both classical and quantum molecular dynamics (QMD) are used to calculate the equation of state and the distribution of chemical bonds at 6000 K in the pressure range 1-25 GPa. Our calculations and results of other authors show that liquid carbon has a fairly low density on the order of 1.2-1.35 g/cm³ at pressures about 1 GPa. Owing to the coordination number analysis, this fact can be attributed to the high content of sp¹-bonded atoms (more than 50% according to our ab initio computations). Six empirical potentials have been tested in order to describe the density dependence of pressure and structure at 6000 K. As a result, only one potential, ReaxFF/lg, was able to reproduce the QMD simulations for both the equation of state and the fraction of sp¹, sp², sp³-bonded atoms.