Novel strategies forinformation storage technology rely upon multistable systems that can be controllably switched between different configurations of comparable free energy. Multistability is present in many molecular and supramolecular systems through a variety of properties (conformations, redox and spin states, shape and dimensionality) that can be influenced by external stimuli. In the solid state, however, it is difficult to amplify the effects of molecular switching to higher length scales in order to relay the response to the outside world

Establishing methods for controlling aspects of large amplitude submolecular movements is a prerequisite for the development of artificial devices that function through rotary motion at the molecular level. Here we demonstrate that the rate of rotation of the interlocked components of fumaramide-derived [2]rotaxanes can be accelerated, by >6 orders of magnitude, by isomerizing them to the corresponding maleamide [2]rotaxanes by using light.

Based on coarse grained simulations of a specially adapted model for bisphenol-A polycarbonate (BPA-PC) we generate by inverse mapping, i.e. the reintroduction of chemical details, well equilibrated all-atom conformations and time trajectories of dense polymeric melts for up to 7.8 µs. This is several orders of magnitude more than any direct all-atom simulations have reached so far. These polymer melts contain up to 68600 atoms in n = 100 chains of molecular weight M = 5217. By comparison with short all-atom simulations we show that these trajectories are physically meaningful, providing us with a powerful tool to compare long time simulations to experiments, which probe specific local dynamics on long time scales, such as NMR relaxation.

Phase stabilizers identified from a top-down strategy overcome microstructure instability of organic solar cells induced by thermal or photo stress.