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1. Aperiodicity and disorder as systematic spectral tuning mechanisms for plasmonic nanostructures

   https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.559905  

   Ozaktas, Ekin_Gunes; Chintapalli, Sreyas; O’Reilly, Eliza; Thon, Susanna_M (May 2025, Optics Express)

   We demonstrate how aperiodicity and disorder can be used as quantifiable mechanisms for tuning the spectral response of plasmonic nanostructure arrays. We tune the extinction spectra of these arrays using deterministically aperiodic (quasicrystal), perturbed lattice (Bernoulli point process, frozen phonon disorder, long-range frozen phonon disorder), negatively correlated (Strauss point process), and positively correlated (Log Gaussian Cox point process) assemblies. We quantify this tuning by considering the local variance of the extinction spectra, demonstrating two orders of magnitude of tunability. Our structures have potential applications in plasmonic or waveguide-based optoelectronic devices such as photovoltaics and photosensing, where spectral tuning is critical to performance. 

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2. PLETHORA OF CLUSTER STRUCTURES ON GL_n

   Gekhtman, M.; Shapiro, M.; Vainshtein, A. (January 2022, Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society)

   We continue the study of multiple cluster structures in the rings of regular functions on $$GL_n$$, $$SL_n$$ and $$\operatorname{Mat}_n$$ that are compatible with Poisson-Lie and Poisson-homogeneous structures. According to our initial conjecture, each class in the Belavin-Drinfeld classification of Poisson--Lie structures on a semisimple complex group $$\mathcal G$$ corresponds to a cluster structure in $$\mathcal O(\mathcal G)$$. Here we prove this conjecture for a large subset of Belavin-Drinfeld (BD) data of $$A_n$$ type, which includes all the previously known examples. Namely, we subdivide all possible $$A_n$$ type BD data into oriented and non-oriented kinds. In the oriented case, we single out BD data satisfying a certain combinatorial condition that we call aperiodicity and prove that for any BD data of this kind there exists a regular cluster structure compatible with the corresponding Poisson-Lie bracket. In fact, we extend the aperiodicity condition to pairs of oriented BD data and prove a more general result that establishes an existence of a regular cluster structure on $$SL_n$$ compatible with a Poisson bracket homogeneous with respect to the right and left action of two copies of $$SL_n$$ equipped with two different Poisson-Lie brackets. If the aperiodicity condition is not satisfied, a compatible cluster structure has to be replaced with a generalized cluster structure. We will address this situation in future publications. 

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3. Rational design of stable functional metal–organic frameworks

   https://doi.org/10.1039/d3mh00541k  

   Chen, Zhijie; Kirlikovali, Kent O.; Shi, Le; Farha, Omar K. (July 2023, Materials Horizons)

   Functional porous metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have been explored for a number of potential applications in catalysis, chemical sensing, water capture, gas storage, and separation. MOFs are among the most promising candidates to address challenges facing our society related to energy and environment, but the successful implementation of functional porous MOF materials are contingent on their stability; therefore, the rational design of stable MOFs plays an important role towards the development of functional porous MOFs. In this Focus article, we summarize progress in the rational design and synthesis of stable MOFs with controllable pores and functionalities. The implementation of reticular chemistry allows for the rational top-down design of stable porous MOFs with targeted topological networks and pore structures from the pre-selected building blocks. We highlight the reticular synthesis and applications of stable MOFs: (1) MOFs based on high valent metal ions ( e.g. , Al 3+ , Cr 3+ , Fe 3+ , Ti 4+ and Zr 4+ ) and carboxylate ligands; (2) MOFs based on low valent metal ions ( e.g. , Ni 2+ , Cu 2+ , and Zn 2+ ) and azolate linkers. We envision that the synthetic strategies, including modulated synthesis and post-synthetic modification, can potentially be extended to other more complex systems like metal-phosphonate framework materials. 

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4. Inverse design of metal–organic frameworks for C2H4/C2H6 separation

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-022-00946-w  

   Zhou, Musen; Wu, Jianzhong (December 2022, npj Computational Materials)

   Abstract Efficient separation of C₂H₄/C₂H₆mixtures is of paramount importance in the petrochemical industry. Nanoporous materials, especially metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), may serve the purpose owing to their tailorable structures and pore geometries. In this work, we propose a computational framework for high-throughput screening and inverse design of high-performance MOFs for adsorption and membrane processes. High-throughput screening of the computational-ready, experimental (CoRE 2019) MOF database leads to materials with exceptionally high ethane-selective adsorption selectivity (LUDLAZ: 7.68) and ethene-selective membrane selectivity (EBINUA02: 2167.3). Moreover, the inverse design enables the exploration of broader chemical space and identification of MOF structures with even higher membrane selectivity and permeability. In addition, a relative membrane performance score (rMPS) has been formulated to evaluate the overall membrane performance relative to the Robeson boundary. The computational framework offers guidelines for the design of MOFs and is generically applicable to materials discovery for gas storage and separation. 

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5. Metal-organic frameworks for water vapor adsorption

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chempr.2023.09.005  

   Shi, Le; Kirlikovali, Kent O; Chen, Zhijie; Farha, Omar K (February 2024, Chem)

   Water is the most abundant and cleanest natural resource on earth, and it is the driving force of all nature. It not only affects food security, human health, and ecosystem integrity and maintenance, but is also an important driver of energy in industrial production and life. Importantly, water adsorption applications are considered to be highly energy-efficient and environmentally friendly technologies,1 including atmospheric water harvesting,2-4 desiccation of clean gases,5 indoor humidity control,6,7 and adsorptive heat transformation.8,9 However, current water adsorption-related applications are still constrained by properties of adsorbents, such as their low water uptake capacities, poor cyclic stabilities, limited feasibilities over a range of humidity conditions, and minimal commercial availabilities. Conventional nanoporous materials (e.g., silica gels, zeolites, and clays) were the first adsorbents used in water capture applications due to their low cost, commercial availability, and favorable water adsorption kinetics. However, these materials generally suffer from either low water uptake capacities or high regeneration temperature, limiting their use in practical water absorption applications.1,10 Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), a class of crystalline porous materials, are assembled from inorganic nodes and organic linkers through coordination bonds.11,12 Benefiting from their exceptional porosity and surface area, tunable pore size and geometry, and highly tailorable and designable structures and functionalities, MOFs show considerable potential for gas storage and separation, heterogeneous catalysis, and other energy and environmental sustainability applications.13-17 In recent years, MOFs have also shown great potential for water vapor adsorption because of a growing understanding of the relationship between MOFs and water, as well as an increasing number of reports detailing MOFs that exhibit high water stability.1,4,9 Moreover, judicious design of the MOF structures enables control over their water adsorption properties and the water uptake capacities, which make MOFs ideal candidates for water adsorption-related applications. This review aims to provide an overview of recent advances in the development of MOFs for water adsorption, as well as to offer proposed guidelines to develop even better water adsorption materials. First, we briefly introduce the fundamentals of water adsorption, including how to ascertain key insights based on the shapes of water adsorption isotherms, descriptions of various water adsorption mechanisms, and a discussion on the stability of MOFs in water systems. Next, we discuss several recent reports have detailed how to improve water uptake capacity through the design and synthesis of MOFs. In particular, we highlight the importance of reticular chemistry in the designed synthesis of MOF-based water adsorbent materials. We then shift our focus to discussing the enormous potential of MOFs for use in selective water vapor adsorption applications with both theoretical and practical considerations considered. Finally, we offer our thoughts on the future development of this field in three aspects: chemistry and materials design, process engineering, and commercialization of MOFs for water adsorption. We hope that this review will provide fundamental insights for chemists and inspire them to synthesize MOFs with better water adsorption performance; and provide assistance to engineers researching MOF-based water adsorption devices and working towards the development of highly energy-efficient and environmentally friendly technologies with reduced carbon footprints. 

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