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Computer simulations rule our lives nowadays. From the scientific perspective, they allow for the knowledge of the most intimate details of matter at a sub-atomic (quantum) level both at a molecular and macroscopic level. When Hydrogen-bonded systems are subject to the action of strong electric fields, peculiar phenomena occur. These have a huge impact in our daily lives since, on one hand, most of the biochemical processes occur in water environments and in the presence of local electric fields and, on the other hand, many technological devices exploit molecular dissociation and proton transfer in order to produce "clean" energy from simple compounds (i.e., molecular hydrogen, methanol, etc.). Through the most advanced computing facilities, the full treatment of the fundamental field-induced processes of molecular dissociation and proton transfer is nowadays affordable and has led to draw a defined sketch of these phenomena with a molecular resolution, a fact almost unthinkable up to few years ago.
About the author
Dr. Giuseppe Cassone obtained a double Ph.D. degree at the University of Messina and at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Sorbonne Université. Currently he is employed at the Biophysics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences where he is working on the chemical pathways that might have led to the emergence of life's building blocks.
