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Covalent polymers with helical conformations offer an adaptive scaffold for smart materials, but polymer-to-monomer deconstruction is inhibited by the covalent backbone. Now it has been shown that poly(disulfide)s can be folded into helices driven by side-chain hydrogen-bonding self-assembly, resulting in a synthetic helical polymer that can be fully recycled.

Although much is understood about the mechanical behaviour of macroscopic machinery, less is known about their molecular equivalents. It is now shown that for molecular machinery consisting of hydrogen-bonded components their relative motion is strongly accelerated by adding small amounts of ‘lubricating’ water, whereas other protic liquids have much weaker or opposite effects.

Azobenzene is perhaps the archetypal light-activated molecule, widely used for photoswitching applications, but the mechanism of isomerisation remains in doubt. Here, the authors provide high-resolution excitation spectra of trans-azobenzene, identifying the structural changes accompanying photoisomerisation.

The design of photoswitches which operate in the visible light regime, show a large separation of absorption bands and are functional in various solvents is challenging. Here the authors report Iminothioindoxyls as visible-light operated photoswitches with a band separation of 100 nm.

Overcrowded alkene-derived molecular motors convert light and heat into chirality-directed unidirectional rotary motion, but the efficiency of their photochemical isomerization remains limited. Now formylation of the motor core has been shown to boost all aspects of motor photochemistry by improving photochemical efficiency, diminishing competing processes and redshifting absorption.

A deeper understanding of the mechanics of molecular machines is limited by the fast motions which are in the nanosecond or picosecond timescale. Here the authors present a real-time observation of structural changes in a rotaxane-based molecular shuttle by transient two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy.

It is essential to understand the effect of molecular vibration on charge transport for better design of molecular electronics. Here, the authors test two benchmark aromatic motifs and show how the coupling between π electrons and molecular vibration is affected by molecular edge topology.