A chemical bond can feel a step ten nanometres away

Chemistry textbooks draw bonds as strictly local — an atom holding hands with its neighbours. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen and the Center for Quantum Nanoscience in Seoul have shown the reach is far longer: on precisely sculpted platinum surfaces, moving a surface step up to 10 nanometres away (about a hundred atoms) measurably changed how strongly a molecule bound. The result, published in Science, matters because platinum surfaces are workhorse catalysts — the materials that speed up fuel cells and chemical manufacturing. Bonds, it turns out, listen to the whole neighbourhood.

SDG 9 · Industry, innovation and infrastructure — Mechanism: tech innovation