Growth of self-integrated atomic quantum wires and junctions of a Mott semiconductor.

Continued advances in quantum technologies rely on producing nanometer-scale wires. Although several state-of-the-art nanolithographic technologies and bottom-up synthesis processes have been used to engineer these wires, critical challenges remain in growing uniform atomic-scale crystalline wires and constructing their network structures. Here, we discover a simple method to fabricate atomic-scale wires with various arrangements, including stripes, X-junctions, Y-junctions, and nanorings. Single-crystalline atomic-scale wires of a Mott insulator, whose bandgap is comparable to those of wide-gap semiconductors, are spontaneously grown on graphite substrates by pulsed-laser deposition. These wires are one unit cell thick and have an exact width of two and four unit cells (1.4 and 2.8 nm) and lengths up to a few micrometers. We show that the nonequilibrium reaction-diffusion processes may play an essential role in atomic pattern formation. Our findings offer a previously unknown perspective on the nonequilibrium self-organization phenomena on an atomic scale, paving a unique way for the quantum architecture of nano-network.

Visible Light-Induced Reductive Alkynylation of Aldehydes by Umpolung Approach.

Reductive alkynylation of aldehydes by the Umpolung approach was developed using a photoredox catalyst under blue LED irradiation. Ketyl radicals, generated by single-electron reduction of aldehydes through proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET), reacted with electrophilic alkynylsulfones. Sterically demanding bulky aldehydes reacted smoothly under the Umpolung reaction conditions. Moreover, the alkynylation proceeded chemoselectively with an aryl aldehyde group in the presence of other carbonyl groups including an aliphatic aldehyde group.