Bonding, Reactivity, and Dynamics in Confined Systems

Confined systems often exhibit unusual behavior regarding their structure, stability, reactivity, bonding, interactions, and dynamics. Quantization is a direct consequence of confinement. Confinement modifies the electronic energy levels, orbitals, electronic shell filling, etc. of a system, thereby affecting its reactivity as well as various response properties as compared to the cases of corresponding unconfined systems. Confinement may force two rare gas atoms to form a partly covalent bond. Gas storage is facilitated through confinement and unprecedented optoelectronic properties are observed in certain cases. Some slow reactions get highly accelerated in an appropriate confined environment. In the current Feature Article we analyze these aspects with a special emphasis on the work done by our research group.