M. Warburton, J.M. Ablett, J.-P. Rueff, P. Baroni, L. Paolasini, L. Noirez We examine the influence at room temperature of the deposit of a water layer on the phonon dynamics of a solid. It is shown that the water wetting at the surface of an Alumina monocrystal has deep effects on acoustic phonons, propagating over several hundred µm distance and taking place on a relatively long time scale.

Michal Swierczewski,  Fabrice Cousin,  Ewa Banach,  Arnulf Rosspeintner,  Latevi Max Lawson Daku,  Abolfazl Ziarati,  Rania Kazan,  Gunnar Jeschke,  Raymond Azoulay,  Lay-Theng Lee,  Thomas Bürgi A bidentate chiral dithiol (diBINAS) is utilised to bridge Au25 nanoclusters to form oligomers. Separation by size allows the isolation of fractions that are stable thanks to the bidentate nature of the linker.