Buried-Interface Engineering Enables Efficient and 1960-Hour ISOS-L-2I Stable Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells.

High-performance perovskite solar cells (PSCs) typically require interfacial passivation, yet this is challenging for the buried interface, owing to the dissolution of passivation agents during the deposition of perovskites. Here, this limitation is overcome with in situ buried-interface passivation-achieved via directly adding a cyanoacrylic-acid-based molecular additive, namely BT-T, into the perovskite precursor solution. Classical and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations reveal that BT-T spontaneously may self-assemble at the buried interface during the formation of the perovskite layer on a nickel oxide hole-transporting layer. The preferential buried-interface passivation results in facilitated hole transfer and suppressed charge recombination. In addition, residual BT-T molecules in the perovskite layer enhance its stability and homogeneity. A power-conversion efficiency (PCE) of 23.48% for 1.0 cm2 inverted-structure PSCs is reported. The encapsulated PSC retains 95.4% of its initial PCE following 1960 h maximum-power-point tracking under continuous light illumination at 65 °C (i.e., ISOS-L-2I protocol). The demonstration of operating-stable PSCs under accelerated ageing conditions represents a step closer to the commercialization of this emerging technology.

Crosslinking Allosteric Sites on the Nucleosome.

Targeting defined histone protein sites in chromatin is an emerging therapeutic approach that can potentially be enhanced by allosteric effects within the nucleosome. Here we characterized a novel hetero-bimetallic compound with a design based on a nucleosomal allostery effect observed earlier for two unrelated drugs-the RuII antimetastasis/antitumor RAPTA-T and the AuI anti-arthritic auranofin. The RuII moiety binds specifically to two H2A glutamate residues on the nucleosome acidic patch, allosterically triggering a cascade of structural changes that promote binding of the AuI moiety to selective histidine residues on H3, resulting in cross-linking sites that are over 35 Šdistant. By tethering the H2A-H2B dimers to the H3-H4 tetramer, the hetero-bimetallic compound significantly increases stability of the nucleosome, illustrating its utility as a site-selective cross-linking agent.

Genetic Optimization of Training Sets for Improved Machine Learning Models of Molecular Properties.

The training of molecular models of quantum mechanical properties based on statistical machine learning requires large data sets which exemplify the map from chemical structure to molecular property. Intelligent a priori selection of training examples is often difficult or impossible to achieve, as prior knowledge may be unavailable. Ordinarily representative selection of training molecules from such data sets is achieved through random sampling. We use genetic algorithms for the optimization of training set composition consisting of tens of thousands of small organic molecules. The resulting machine learning models are considerably more accurate: in the limit of small training sets, mean absolute errors for out-of-sample predictions are reduced by up to ∼75%. We discuss and present optimized training sets consisting of 10 molecular classes for all molecular properties studied. We show that these classes can be used to design improved training sets for the generation of machine learning models of the same properties in similar but unrelated molecular sets.

Mechanism of bleomycin suicide: a Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics investigation.

Using first-principles molecular dynamics simulations (Car-Parrinello method) we investigated the possible reaction pathways for decay of the active bleomycin-Fe(III)-OOH complex, so-called bleomycin suicide. The theoretical model of activated bleomycin contains the whole metal bonding domain of the bleomycin ligand. Simulations performed both in a vacuum and in water show that a facile decaying process involves a homolytic O-O bond cleavage with an almost simultaneous hydrogen atom abstraction. The formation of an intra- or intermolecular hydrogen bond appears to be crucial for the decay of the activated bleomycin. We did not observe any evidence of heterolytic cleavage of the O-O bond of the Fe(III)-OOH species.

Experimental and theoretical study of intramolecular exchange in Ir2Rh2(CO)12 and Ir4(CO)11(micro-SO2).

As observed by variable-temperature and -pressure 13C NMR, intramolecular carbonyl scrambling in Ir2Rh2(CO)12 and Ir4(CO)11(micro-SO2) proceeds via a 'change of basal face' mechanism. In both cases the site exchange process has a positive activation volume suggesting that the transition states contain longer M-M distances compared to ground states of Cs symmetry. Transition state structures have been located by density functional calculations including relativistic effects. These structures contain a new symmetry plane which interchanges the indistinguishable starting and final geometries. Both transition state structures contain one significantly elongated M-M distance, bearing the bridging ligand unaffected by the site exchange. Differences in molecular volumes of ground and transition state geometries as calculated from Connolly surfaces and electron densities confirm the volume expansion in both cases. The sign of the activation volume is therefore a good criterion for distinguishing between the two main site exchange processes occurring in tetrahedral d9 carbonyl clusters, i.e. the 'change of basal face' process and the 'merry-go-round' process, as the latter presents a negative activation volume.