Fig. 1

Reaction kinetics in confining materials with variable nanopore morphologies. a Schematic of single-particle single-molecule imaging setup (left) and chemical conversion processes inside nanopore (right). b Reaction kinetics for different nanopore lengths and diameters at single particle single molecule level. Adsorption/desorption equilibrium constant K_AR c and rate constant k_eff d are obtained from fitting the single particle single molecule kinetics data with the DLH model. e Ensemble results of reaction rates of nanocatalysts with variable porous shell thickness and pore diameter are shown at same amount of particle concentrations (~10¹² particles mL⁻¹). It should be noted that the shallow excitation depth of TIRFM (<250 nm) makes it challenging to compare single particle catalytic activities of thicker shells (>150 nm) to those with thin shells (40–120 nm) quantitatively. The error bars are calculated uncertainties from fitting catalytic reaction kinetic data over 40 single nanocatalysts for each nanopore morphology (b and c) and calculated standard deviation (s.d.) from three trials of ensemble measurements (e), respectively