Salt-Free Strategy for the Insertion of CO2 into C-H Bonds: Catalytic Hydroxymethylation of Alkynes.

A copper(I) catalyst enables the insertion of carbon dioxide into alkyne C-H bonds by using a suitable organic base with which hydrogenation of the resulting carboxylate salt with regeneration of the base becomes thermodynamically feasible. In the presence of catalytic copper(I) chloride/4,7-diphenyl-1,10-phenanthroline, polymer-bound triphenylphosphine, and 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine as the base, terminal alkynes undergo carboxylation at 15 bar CO2 and room temperature. After filtration, the ammonium alkynecarboxylate can be hydrogenated to the primary alcohol and water at a rhodium/molybdenum catalyst, regenerating the amine base. This demonstrates the feasibility of a salt-free overall process, in which carbon dioxide serves as a C1 building block in a C-H functionalization.

Influence of strain relaxation in axial [Formula: see text] nanowire heterostructures on their electronic properties.

We present a systematic theoretical study of the influence of elastic strain relaxation on the built-in electrostatic potentials and the electronic properties of axial [Formula: see text] nanowire (NW) heterostructures. Our simulations reveal that for a sufficiently large ratio between the thickness of the [Formula: see text] disk and the diameter of the NW, the elastic relaxation leads to a significant reduction of the built-in electrostatic potential in comparison to a planar system of similar layer thickness and In content. In this case, the ground state transition energies approach constant values with increasing thickness of the disk and only depend on the In content, a behavior usually associated to that of a quantum well free of built-in electrostatic potentials. We show that the structures under consideration are by no means field-free, and the built-in potentials continue to play an important role even for ultrathin NWs. In particular, strain and the resulting polarization potentials induce complex confinement features of electrons and holes, which depend on the In content, shape, and dimensions of the heterostructure.

Trifluoromethylthiolation and Trifluoromethylselenolation of α-Diazo Esters Catalyzed by Copper.

α-Diazo esters are smoothly converted into the corresponding trifluoromethyl thio- or selenoethers by reaction with Me4 NSCF3 or Me4 NSeCF3 , respectively, in the presence of catalytic amounts of copper thiocyanate. This straightforward method gives high yields under neutral conditions at room temperature and is applicable to a wide range of functionalized molecules, including diverse α-amino acid derivatives. It is well-suited for the late-stage introduction of trifluoromethylthio or -seleno groups into drug-like molecules.

Nanofocus x-ray diffraction and cathodoluminescence investigations into individual core-shell (In,Ga)N/GaN rod light-emitting diodes.

Employing nanofocus x-ray diffraction, we investigate the local strain field induced by a five-fold (In,Ga)N multi-quantum well embedded into a GaN micro-rod in core-shell geometry. Due to an x-ray beam width of only 150 nm in diameter, we are able to distinguish between individual m-facets and to detect a significant in-plane strain gradient along the rod height. This gradient translates to a red-shift in the emitted wavelength revealed by spatially resolved cathodoluminescence measurements. We interpret the result in terms of numerically derived in-plane strain using the finite element method and subsequent kinematic scattering simulations which show that the driving parameter for this effect is an increasing indium content towards the rod tip.

ortho-C-H Arylation of Benzoic Acids with Aryl Bromides and Chlorides Catalyzed by Ruthenium.

A system consisting of catalytic amounts of [(p-cym)RuCl2 ]2 /PEt3 ⋅HBF4 , K2 CO3 as the base, and NMP as the solvent efficiently mediates the ortho-C-H arylation of benzoic acids with aryl bromides at 100 °C. Replacing the phosphine ligand with the amino acid dl-pipecolinic acid enables the analogous transformation with aryl chlorides. The key advantage of this broadly applicable transformation is the use of an inexpensive ruthenium catalyst in combination with simple carboxylates as directing groups, which can either be tracelessly removed or used as anchor points for decarboxylative ipso substitutions.

Thermodynamics of the polaron master equation at finite bias.

We study coherent transport through a double quantum dot. Its two electronic leads induce electronic matter and energy transport and a phonon reservoir contributes further energy exchanges. By treating the system-lead couplings perturbatively, whereas the coupling to vibrations is treated non-perturbatively in a polaron-transformed frame, we derive a thermodynamic consistent low-dimensional master equation. When the number of phonon modes is finite, a Markovian description is only possible when these couple symmetrically to both quantum dots. For a continuum of phonon modes however, also asymmetric couplings can be described with a Markovian master equation. We compute the electronic current and dephasing rate. The electronic current enables transport spectroscopy of the phonon frequency and displays signatures of Franck-Condon blockade. For infinite external bias but finite tunneling bandwidths, we find oscillations in the current as a function of the internal bias due to the electron-phonon coupling. Furthermore, we derive the full fluctuation theorem and show its identity to the entropy production in the system.

A hybrid MBE-based growth method for large-area synthesis of stacked hexagonal boron nitride/graphene heterostructures.

Van der Waals heterostructures combining hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and graphene offer many potential advantages, but remain difficult to produce as continuous films over large areas. In particular, the growth of h-BN on graphene has proven to be challenging due to the inertness of the graphene surface. Here we exploit a scalable molecular beam epitaxy based method to allow both the h-BN and graphene to form in a stacked heterostructure in the favorable growth environment provided by a Ni(111) substrate. This involves first saturating a Ni film on MgO(111) with C, growing h-BN on the exposed metal surface, and precipitating the C back to the h-BN/Ni interface to form graphene. The resulting laterally continuous heterostructure is composed of a top layer of few-layer thick h-BN on an intermediate few-layer thick graphene, lying on top of Ni/MgO(111). Examinations by synchrotron-based grazing incidence diffraction, X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, and UV-Raman spectroscopy reveal that while the h-BN is relaxed, the lattice constant of graphene is significantly reduced, likely due to nitrogen doping. These results illustrate a different pathway for the production of h-BN/graphene heterostructures, and open a new perspective for the large-area preparation of heterosystems combining graphene and other 2D or 3D materials.

Threefold rotational symmetry in hexagonally shaped core-shell (In,Ga)As/GaAs nanowires revealed by coherent X-ray diffraction imaging.

Coherent X-ray diffraction imaging at symmetric hhh Bragg reflections was used to resolve the structure of GaAs/In0.15Ga0.85As/GaAs core-shell-shell nanowires grown on a silicon (111) substrate. Diffraction amplitudes in the vicinity of GaAs 111 and GaAs 333 reflections were used to reconstruct the lost phase information. It is demonstrated that the structure of the core-shell-shell nanowire can be identified by means of phase contrast. Interestingly, it is found that both scattered intensity in the (111) plane and the reconstructed scattering phase show an additional threefold symmetry superimposed with the shape function of the investigated hexagonal nanowires. In order to find the origin of this threefold symmetry, elasticity calculations were performed using the finite element method and subsequent kinematic diffraction simulations. These suggest that a non-hexagonal (In,Ga)As shell covering the hexagonal GaAs core might be responsible for the observation.

Atom-economic catalytic amide synthesis from amines and carboxylic acids activated in situ with acetylenes.

Amide bond-forming reactions are of tremendous significance in synthetic chemistry. Methodological research has, in the past, focused on efficiency and selectivity, and these have reached impressive levels. However, the unacceptable amounts of waste produced have led the ACS GCI Roundtable to label 'amide bond formation avoiding poor atom economy' as the most pressing target for sustainable synthetic method development. In response to this acute demand, we herein disclose an efficient one-pot amide coupling protocol that is based on simple alkynes as coupling reagents: in the presence of a dichloro[(2,6,10-dodecatriene)-1,12-diyl]ruthenium catalyst, carboxylate salts of primary or secondary amines react with acetylene or ethoxyacetylene to vinyl ester intermediates, which undergo aminolysis to give the corresponding amides along only with volatile acetaldehyde or ethyl acetate, respectively. The new amide synthesis is broadly applicable to the synthesis of structurally diverse amides, including dipeptides.