Thermochromic Behavior of Polydiacetylene Nanomaterials Driven by Charged Peptide Amphiphiles

The tunability of chromatic phases adapted by chromogenic polymers such as polydiacetylene (PDA) is key to their utility for robust sensing applications. Here, we investigated the influence of charged peptide interactions on the structure-dependent thermochromicity of amphiphilic PDAs. Solid-state NMR and circular dichroism analyses show that our oppositely charged peptide-PDA samples have distinct degrees of structural order, with the coassembled sample being in between the β-sheet-like positive peptide-PDA and the relatively disordered negative peptide-PDA. All solutions exhibit thermochromicity between 20 and 80 °C, whereby the hysteresis of the blue, planar phase is much larger than that of the red, twisted phase. Resonance Raman spectroscopy of films demonstrates that only coassemblies with electrostatic complementarity stabilize coexisting blue and red PDA phases. This work reveals the nature of the structural changes responsible for the thermally responsive chromatic transitions of biomolecule-functionalized polymeric materials and how this process can be directed by sequence-dictated electrostatic interactions.

Enhanced Low-Temperature Thermoelectric Performance in (PbSe)1+δ(VSe2)1 Heterostructures due to Highly Correlated Electrons in Charge Density Waves

We explore the effect of charge density wave (CDW) on the in-plane thermoelectric transport properties of (PbSe)_1+δ(VSe₂)₁ and (PbSe)_1+δ(VSe₂)₂ heterostructures. In (PbSe)_1+δ(VSe₂)₁ we observe an abrupt 86% increase in the Seebeck coefficient, 245% increase in the power factor, and a slight decrease in resistivity over the CDW transition. This behavior is not observed in (PbSe)_1+δ(VSe₂)₂ and is rather unusual compared to the general trend observed in other materials. The abrupt transition causes a deviation from the Mott relationship through correlated electron states. Raman spectra of the (PbSe)_1+δ(VSe₂)₁ material show the emergence of additional peaks below the CDW transition temperature associated with VSe₂ material. Temperature-dependent in-plane X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra show a change in the in-plane thermal expansion of VSe₂ in (PbSe)_1+δ(VSe₂)₁ due to lattice distortion. The increase in the power factor and decrease in the resistivity due to CDW suggest a potential mechanism for enhancing the thermoelectric performance at the low temperature region.

Synthesis of Metastable Inorganic Solids with Extended Structures

The number of known inorganic compounds is dramatically less than predicted due to synthetic challenges, which often constrains products to only the thermodynamically most stable compounds. Consequently, a mechanism-based approach to inorganic solids with designed structures is the holy grail of solid state synthesis. This article discusses a number of synthetic approaches using the concept of an energy landscape, which describes the complex relationship between the energy of different atomic configurations as a function of a variety of parameters such as initial structure, temperature, pressure, and composition. Nucleation limited synthesis approaches with high diffusion rates are contrasted with diffusion limited synthesis approaches. One challenge to the synthesis of new compounds is the inability to accurately predict what structures might be local free energy minima in the free energy landscape. Approaches to this challenge include predicting potentially stable compounds thorough the use of structural homologies and/or theoretical calculations. A second challenge to the synthesis of metastable inorganic solids is developing approaches to move across the energy landscape to a desired local free energy minimum while avoiding deeper free energy minima, such as stable binary compounds, as reaction intermediates. An approach using amorphous intermediates is presented, where local composition can be used to prepare metastable compounds. Designed nanoarchitecture built into a precursor can be preserved at low reaction temperatures and used to direct the reaction to specific structural homologs.