Themed collection 2025 PCCP Reviews

To elucidate the structure of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) a refined description of their conformational ensembles is crucial.

The pursuit of quantitatively accurate electron correlation calculations for realistic large strongly correlated systems presents significant theoretical and computational challenges.

Understanding the influence of surface oxidation of topological quantum materials induced by air exposure on its catalytic activity.

This article provides a comprehensive description of peptides from three dimensions: technology, properties and applications.

Alignment and solidification of small-molecule liquid crystals enables preparation of materials where nanoscale structure can be controlled macroscopically. These solids are promising for applications such as soft robotics and wearable sensors.

In this paper, we highlight the need for in situ/operando characterization to understand the evolutions occurring during the early surface activation steps of Pt-based nanoalloys leading to the actual catalysts.

This review discusses machine learning-assisted research on alkali metal-based battery materials, exploring ML processes, models, and applications for designing materials and predicting battery performance.

Surface science studies on robust model systems, including small molecule adsorption, hold great promise in revealing critical structure and chemistry-function relationships for optimizing light-driven energy conversion technologies.

This perspective aims to provide an easy-to-follow review of analytical gradient theories. We also briefly review the practical applications of these methods.

Knowledge on ODH established via computational and experimental studies drives rational design of novel catalysts and optimization of catalytic systems, which can also embrace machine learning in the future, benefiting from historic data.

This work showcases recent advances in lasing phenomena in cholesteric liquid crystals (ChLCs). Highlights include innovations in materials design, new lasing mechanisms, and emerging applications.

Schematic illustrations of electronic band structures in different solid-state materials, highlighting topological materials with nontrivial band topology and protected surface states.

Sensitized triplet–triplet annihilation upconversion (sTTA-UC) is a powerful method for light harvesting and energy conversion. Photosensitizers based on modern earth-abundant transition metal complexes promise a bright future for this field.

Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is a technique that combines chemical etching and mechanical grinding to achieve atomic-level surface planarization in various materials, playing a key role in wafer thinning.

Recent advances in the construction of metal–organic nanostructures and their structural transformations on metal surfaces have been reviewed, providing mechanistic insights into precise structural control.

Carbon nitride research has reached a promising stage with diverse applications in photocatalysis, energy storage, and sensing, driven by its unique properties and significant contributions from cutting-edge machine learning approaches.

This review summarizes the latest progress of ion exchange for zeolite adsorbents, discusses key parameters and their mechanisms, and highlights the impact of issues such as incomplete exchange and pore blockage on the adsorption performance.

Microscopic time-resolved spectroscopy can study the morphology-dependent photoexcitation dynamics and energy spatial transport processes in organic crystals at the nanometer and micrometer scale.