<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE article SYSTEM "http://jats.nlm.nih.gov/archiving/1.2/JATS-archivearticle1.dtd"><article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" dtd-version="1.2" article-type="research-article" xml:lang="en"><?properties open_access?><front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">42004</journal-id><journal-id journal-id-type="doi">10.1038/42004.2399-3669</journal-id><journal-title-group><journal-title>Communications Chemistry</journal-title><abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">Commun Chem</abbrev-journal-title></journal-title-group><issn pub-type="epub">2399-3669</issn><publisher><publisher-name>Nature Publishing Group UK</publisher-name><publisher-loc>London</publisher-loc></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">s42004-019-0204-6</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="manuscript">204</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.1038/s42004-019-0204-6</article-id><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="heading"><subject>Article</subject></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="SubjectPath"><subject>/639/301/119</subject></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="SubjectPath"><subject>/639/638/263/910</subject></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="SubjectPath"><subject>/639/638/563/606</subject></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="SubjectPath"><subject>/639/301/119/995</subject></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="NatureArticleTypeID"><subject>article</subject></subj-group></article-categories><title-group><article-title xml:lang="en">Electrostatic force driven helium insertion into ammonia and water crystals under pressure</article-title></title-group><contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author"><name><surname>Bai</surname><given-names>Yihong</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="Aff1">1</xref></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author"><name><surname>Liu</surname><given-names>Zhen</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="Aff2">2</xref><xref ref-type="aff" rid="Aff3">3</xref></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author"><name><surname>Botana</surname><given-names>Jorge</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="Aff2">2</xref><xref ref-type="aff" rid="Aff3">3</xref></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author" corresp="yes"><name><surname>Yan</surname><given-names>Dadong</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="Aff1">1</xref><xref ref-type="corresp" rid="cor4">d</xref></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author" corresp="yes"><name><surname>Lin</surname><given-names>Hai-Qing</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="Aff2">2</xref><xref ref-type="corresp" rid="cor5">e</xref></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author"><contrib-id contrib-id-type="orcid">http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6172-9100</contrib-id><name><surname>Sun</surname><given-names>Jian</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="Aff4">4</xref></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author"><contrib-id contrib-id-type="orcid">http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9684-5432</contrib-id><name><surname>Pickard</surname><given-names>Chris J.</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="Aff5">5</xref><xref ref-type="aff" rid="Aff6">6</xref></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author"><name><surname>Needs</surname><given-names>Richard J.</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="Aff7">7</xref></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author" corresp="yes"><name><surname>Miao</surname><given-names>Mao-Sheng</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="Aff2">2</xref><xref ref-type="aff" rid="Aff3">3</xref><xref ref-type="corresp" rid="cor9">i</xref></contrib><aff id="Aff1"><label>Aff1</label><institution-wrap><institution-id institution-id-type="ISNI">0000 0004 1789 9964</institution-id><institution-id institution-id-type="GRID">grid.20513.35</institution-id><institution content-type="org-division">Department of Physics</institution><institution content-type="org-name">Beijing Normal University</institution></institution-wrap><addr-line content-type="postcode">100875</addr-line><addr-line content-type="city">Beijing</addr-line><country country="CN">China</country></aff><aff id="Aff2"><label>Aff2</label><institution-wrap><institution content-type="org-name">Beijing Computational Science Research Centre</institution></institution-wrap><addr-line content-type="postcode">100193</addr-line><addr-line content-type="city">Beijing</addr-line><country country="CN">China</country></aff><aff id="Aff3"><label>Aff3</label><institution-wrap><institution-id institution-id-type="ISNI">0000 0001 0657 9381</institution-id><institution-id institution-id-type="GRID">grid.253563.4</institution-id><institution content-type="org-division">Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry</institution><institution content-type="org-name">California State University Northridge</institution></institution-wrap><addr-line content-type="postcode">91330-8262</addr-line><addr-line content-type="city">Northridge</addr-line><addr-line content-type="state">CA</addr-line><country country="US">USA</country></aff><aff id="Aff4"><label>Aff4</label><institution-wrap><institution-id institution-id-type="ISNI">0000 0001 2314 964X</institution-id><institution-id institution-id-type="GRID">grid.41156.37</institution-id><institution content-type="org-division">National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, School of Physics and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures</institution><institution content-type="org-name">Nanjing University</institution></institution-wrap><addr-line content-type="postcode">210093</addr-line><addr-line content-type="city">Nanjing</addr-line><country country="CN">China</country></aff><aff id="Aff5"><label>Aff5</label><institution-wrap><institution-id institution-id-type="ISNI">0000000121885934</institution-id><institution-id institution-id-type="GRID">grid.5335.0</institution-id><institution content-type="org-division">Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy</institution><institution content-type="org-name">University of Cambridge</institution></institution-wrap><addr-line content-type="postcode">CB3 0FS</addr-line><addr-line content-type="city">Cambridge</addr-line><country country="GB">UK</country></aff><aff id="Aff6"><label>Aff6</label><institution-wrap><institution-id institution-id-type="ISNI">0000 0001 2248 6943</institution-id><institution-id institution-id-type="GRID">grid.69566.3a</institution-id><institution content-type="org-division">Advanced Institute for Materials Research</institution><institution content-type="org-name">Tohoku University</institution></institution-wrap><addr-line content-type="postcode">980-8577</addr-line><addr-line content-type="city">Sendai</addr-line><country country="JP">Japan</country></aff><aff id="Aff7"><label>Aff7</label><institution-wrap><institution-id institution-id-type="ISNI">0000000121885934</institution-id><institution-id institution-id-type="GRID">grid.5335.0</institution-id><institution content-type="org-division">Cavendish Laboratory</institution><institution content-type="org-name">University of Cambridge</institution></institution-wrap><addr-line content-type="street">J. J. Thomson Avenue</addr-line><addr-line content-type="postcode">CB3 0HE</addr-line><addr-line content-type="city">Cambridge</addr-line><country country="GB">UK</country></aff></contrib-group><author-notes><corresp id="cor4"><label>d</label><email>yandd@bnu.edu.cn</email></corresp><corresp id="cor5"><label>e</label><email>haiqing0@csrc.ac.cn</email></corresp><corresp id="cor9"><label>i</label><email>miaoms@gmail.com</email></corresp></author-notes><pub-date date-type="epub"><day>2</day><month>9</month><year>2019</year></pub-date><pub-date date-type="collection"><month>12</month><year>2019</year></pub-date><volume>2</volume><issue seq="102">1</issue><elocation-id>102</elocation-id><history><date date-type="registration"><day>10</day><month>8</month><year>2019</year></date><date date-type="received"><day>15</day><month>2</month><year>2019</year></date><date date-type="accepted"><day>6</day><month>8</month><year>2019</year></date><date date-type="online"><day>2</day><month>9</month><year>2019</year></date></history><permissions><copyright-statement>© The Author(s) 2019</copyright-statement><copyright-year>2019</copyright-year><license license-type="open-access" xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><license-p><bold>Open Access</bold> This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link>.</license-p></license></permissions><abstract id="Abs1" xml:lang="en"><title>Abstract</title><p id="Par1">Helium, ammonia and ice are among the major components of giant gas planets, and predictions of their chemical structures are therefore crucial in predicting planetary dynamics. Here we demonstrate a strong driving force originating from the alternation of the electrostatic interactions for helium to react with crystals of polar molecules such as ammonia and ice. We show that ammonia and helium can form thermodynamically stable compounds above 45 GPa, while ice and helium can form thermodynamically stable compounds above 300 GPa. The changes in the electrostatic interactions provide the driving force for helium insertion under high pressure, but the mechanism is very different to those that occur in ammonia and ice. This work extends the reactivity of helium into new types of compounds and demonstrates the richness of the chemistry of this most stable element in the periodic table.</p></abstract><abstract id="Abs2" xml:lang="en"><p id="Par2">The reactivity of small molecule gases at high pressure has implications for astrochemistry. Here helium is shown in silico to form stable compounds with water and ammonia at gigapascal pressures.</p></abstract><custom-meta-group><custom-meta><meta-name>publisher-imprint-name</meta-name><meta-value>Nature Research</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>volume-issue-count</meta-name><meta-value>1</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>issue-article-count</meta-name><meta-value>0</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>issue-toc-levels</meta-name><meta-value>0</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>issue-pricelist-year</meta-name><meta-value>2019</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>issue-copyright-holder</meta-name><meta-value>The Author(s)</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>issue-copyright-year</meta-name><meta-value>2018</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>article-contains-esm</meta-name><meta-value>Yes</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>article-numbering-style</meta-name><meta-value>Unnumbered</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>article-registration-date-year</meta-name><meta-value>2019</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>article-registration-date-month</meta-name><meta-value>8</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>article-registration-date-day</meta-name><meta-value>10</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>article-toc-levels</meta-name><meta-value>0</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>toc-levels</meta-name><meta-value>0</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>volume-type</meta-name><meta-value>Regular</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>journal-product</meta-name><meta-value>NonStandardArchiveJournal</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>numbering-style</meta-name><meta-value>Unnumbered</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>article-grants-type</meta-name><meta-value>OpenChoice</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>metadata-grant</meta-name><meta-value>OpenAccess</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>abstract-grant</meta-name><meta-value>OpenAccess</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>bodypdf-grant</meta-name><meta-value>OpenAccess</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>bodyhtml-grant</meta-name><meta-value>OpenAccess</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>bibliography-grant</meta-name><meta-value>OpenAccess</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>esm-grant</meta-name><meta-value>OpenAccess</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>online-first</meta-name><meta-value>false</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>pdf-file-reference</meta-name><meta-value>BodyRef/PDF/42004_2019_Article_204.pdf</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>target-type</meta-name><meta-value>OnlinePDF</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>issue-type</meta-name><meta-value>Regular</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>article-type</meta-name><meta-value>OriginalPaper</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>journal-subject-primary</meta-name><meta-value>Chemistry</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>journal-subject-secondary</meta-name><meta-value>Chemistry/Food Science, general</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>journal-subject-collection</meta-name><meta-value>Chemistry and Materials Science</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta><meta-name>open-access</meta-name><meta-value>true</meta-value></custom-meta></custom-meta-group></article-meta></front><body><sec id="Sec1" sec-type="introduction"><title>Introduction</title><p id="Par3">The noble gas (NG)<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR1">1</xref></sup> elements are usually quite inert to chemical reactions due to their closed shell configurations. Among all NG elements, He is the most stable one since its ionization energy is almost twice that of Xe. Although hundreds of NG compounds<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR2">2</xref>,<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR3">3</xref></sup> have been synthesized, stable solid compounds of He have been discovered only very recently<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR4">4</xref></sup>. Application of high pressure is one of the effective methods for preparing NG compounds<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR3">3</xref>,<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR5">5</xref>–<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR8">8</xref></sup>. High pressures can change the relative energy ordering of atomic orbitals and can promote new oxidation states of elements. Xe can adopt +2, +4, and +6 oxidation states with O or F under high pressures. In these compounds, Xe forms covalent bonds with O or F by sharing its 5p electrons<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR5">5</xref>,<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR9">9</xref>–<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR12">12</xref></sup>. Xe can also be oxidized by Fe under high pressure<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR13">13</xref></sup>. Under high pressure, Xe can also gain electrons from Mg or Li<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR14">14</xref>,<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR15">15</xref></sup>. The lighter NG elements such as Kr and Ar can also form compounds under high pressure via electron transfer<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR16">16</xref>–<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR18">18</xref></sup>. As the radii of the NG elements become smaller, their ionization potential become higher and the electron affinity lower. Up till very recently, no solid compound with strong binding has been found for He and Ne. The known compounds consisting of He are either charged molecular species such as helium hydride ion (HeH<sup>+</sup>)<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR19">19</xref>,<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR20">20</xref></sup>, or the pressure stabilized van der Waals compounds, such as Ne(He)<sub>2</sub><sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR21">21</xref>,<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR22">22</xref></sup> and He(N<sub>2</sub>)<sub>11</sub><sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR23">23</xref></sup>. Interestingly, He was also shown to form HeN<sub>4</sub> in a pressure range from 8.5 to 69 GPa<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR24">24</xref></sup>.</p><p id="Par4">In a recent work, Dong et al. <sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR25">25</xref></sup> showed that He could react with Na to form a thermodynamically stable Na<sub>2</sub>He structure under high pressure<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR26">26</xref></sup>. In their work, interstitial quasi-atoms<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR27">27</xref></sup> appear in the chemical product Na<sub>2</sub>He, which can be regarded as Na<sup>+</sup><sub>2</sub>E<sup>2-</sup>He, where E<sup>2−</sup> represents the interstitial site occupied by two valence electrons. The oxides and sulfides of alkali metals<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR28">28</xref></sup> can also form compounds with formulae A<sub>2</sub>OHe or A<sub>2</sub>SHe. In these He compounds there is no charge transfer or electron sharing between He and other elements. In our previous work<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR29">29</xref></sup>, we demonstrated that the change in the Madelung energy is the driving force which stabilizes the He insertion compounds. He insertion into A<sub>2</sub>B or AB<sub>2</sub> type ionic compounds decreases the Madelung energy, while in AB type compounds He insertion increases the Madelung energy. The stability of He insertion into ionic compounds is a consequence of the competition between the Madelung energy and other opposing factors. This driving force is so strong that He insertion could also occur in highly polarized covalent compounds such as SiO<sub>2</sub><sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR30">30</xref>,<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR31">31</xref></sup>. Similar mechanism might also promote the insertion of He into FeO<sub>2</sub>, a recently identified important mineral in the Earth’s lower mantle that plays important role for the cycle of oxygen and water in Earth<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR32">32</xref></sup>. This rapid discovery of new He compounds inspires a new question: can He react with crystals of highly polarized molecules under pressure? Liu et al.<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR33">33</xref></sup> have already shown that H<sub>2</sub>O and He can form stable compounds above around 300 GPa. However, under that pressure, H<sub>2</sub>O has already become A<sub>2</sub>B type ionic compound via hydrogen-bond symmetrization.</p><p id="Par5">In this work, we study the reactivity of He with two representative molecular crystals, ammonia and ice. These molecules and He are among the major components of giant gas planets. Therefore, the understanding of their reactivity with He is important for studying the evolution and dynamics of these planets. Both H<sub>2</sub>O and NH<sub>3</sub> are non-linear polarized molecules with unequal numbers of positively and negatively charged atoms. Based on recent work, this feature of the composition induces changes in the electrostatic energy that favor He insertion. Indeed, our calculations show that both ammonia and ice can react with He and form stable ternary compounds at pressures above 45 and 300 GPa, respectively. However, analysis of the geometries and the electronic structures show that the mechanism is quite different in the two molecular crystals. In ammonia the insertion of He leads to rearrangement of the molecules and the reorientation of their dipoles. The corresponding gain in the Madelung energy and the <italic>PV</italic> term is the major driving force. The insertion of He in ice occurs only at pressures above the ionization of water molecules. Therefore, the insertion of He in ice is similar to the insertion of He in an A<sub>2</sub>B crystal ionic type.</p></sec><sec id="Sec2" sec-type="results"><title>Results</title><sec id="Sec3"><title>Stability and structure</title><p id="Par6">The reaction enthalpy is commonly used to analyze the thermal stability of compounds. It is formulated as the sum of the enthalpies of the molecular crystals of interest, minus the sum of the enthalpies of the He insertion compounds:<disp-formula id="Equ1"><label>1</label><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Δ</mml:mi><mml:msup><mml:mrow><mml:mi>H</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi>r</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msup><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mfenced close="]" open="[" separators=""><mml:mrow><mml:mi>n</mml:mi><mml:mi>H</mml:mi><mml:mfenced close=")" open="(" separators=""><mml:mrow><mml:mi>X</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:mfenced><mml:mo>+</mml:mo><mml:mi>H</mml:mi><mml:mfenced close=")" open="(" separators=""><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">He</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:mfenced></mml:mrow></mml:mfenced><mml:mo>-</mml:mo><mml:mi>H</mml:mi><mml:mfenced close=")" open="(" separators=""><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi>X</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi>n</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msub><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">He</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:mfenced><mml:mo>,</mml:mo></mml:math><tex-math id="Equ1_TeX">\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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				\begin{document}$${\mathrm{\Delta }}{H}^r = \left[ {n{H}\left( X \right) + {H}\left( {{\mathrm{He}}} \right)} \right] - {H}\left( {X_n{\mathrm{He}}} \right){,}$$\end{document}</tex-math><graphic xlink:href="42004_2019_204_Article_Equ1.gif" position="anchor"/></alternatives></disp-formula>where, <italic>X</italic> stands for the covalent compound of interest, and Δ<italic>H</italic><sup><italic>r</italic></sup> stands for relative enthalpy. As shown in Fig. <xref rid="Fig1" ref-type="fig">1</xref>, we calculate the reaction enthalpy of NH<sub>3</sub>+He and 2H<sub>2</sub>O+He. The solid lines with symbols show the reaction enthalpies calculated for different molecular structures. He inserted compounds become stable when the reaction enthalpy is above zero.<fig id="Fig1"><label>Fig. 1</label><caption xml:lang="en"><p>The relative enthalpy difference of an He insertion reaction. <bold>a</bold> NH<sub>3</sub> + He relative to NH<sub>3</sub>He. <bold>b</bold> 2H<sub>2</sub>O + He relative to (H<sub>2</sub>O)<sub>2</sub>He. Solid lines represent NH<sub>3</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>O in different structures and elemental He. The dashed lines at zero represent He inserted compound</p></caption><graphic specific-use="HTML" mime-subtype="PNG" xlink:href="42004_2019_204_Fig1_HTML.png"/></fig></p><p id="Par7">Figure <xref rid="Fig1" ref-type="fig">1a</xref> shows results for He insertion in an ammonia crystal. The resulting NH<sub>3</sub>He compound becomes thermodynamically stable against decomposition into molecular NH<sub>3</sub> and elemental He above 45 GPa. Increasing the pressure stabilizes the He inserted compound, and the relative enthalpy difference increases to 0.38 eV/f.u. at 600 GPa. In order to calculate the stability of NH<sub>3</sub>He we must calculate the enthalpy of formation of NH<sub>3</sub> as a function of pressure. Structural phase transitions in ammonia<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR34">34</xref></sup> at high pressure have been well studied. We have investigated the stability of five NH<sub>3</sub> structures at high pressures with space groups <italic>P</italic>2<sub>1</sub>3, <italic>P</italic>2<sub>1</sub>2<sub>1</sub>2<sub>1</sub>, <italic>Pma</italic>2, <italic>P</italic>2<sub>1</sub>/<italic>m</italic>, and <italic>Pnma</italic>, and the stability of NH<sub>3</sub>He compounds. Figure <xref rid="Fig1" ref-type="fig">1a</xref> shows the reaction enthalpy and also reveals the ordering of the thermodynamically stable structures at various pressures, which agrees well with the previous study<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR34">34</xref></sup>. NH<sub>3</sub> adopts space group <italic>P</italic>2<sub>1</sub>3 at ambient pressure, which has an intermolecular distance (N–N) larger than 3.29 Å. Between 31 and 98 GPa the NH<sub>3</sub> structure adopts space group <italic>P</italic>2<sub>1</sub>2<sub>1</sub>2<sub>1</sub>. This structure is well-packed due to the high pressure and the decrease in intermolecular distances. For instance, at 50 GPa, the N–N distance is 2.71 Å. Above 98 GPa, NH<sub>3</sub> adopts the space group <italic>Pma</italic>2 up to 297 GPa. In this structure self-ionization occurs as shown by the reaction <inline-formula id="IEq1"><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mn>2</mml:mn><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">NH</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>3</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub><mml:mo>→</mml:mo><mml:msubsup><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">NH</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>4</mml:mn></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mo>+</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:msubsup><mml:mo>+</mml:mo><mml:msubsup><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">NH</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mo>-</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:msubsup></mml:math><tex-math id="IEq1_TeX">\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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				\begin{document}$$2{\mathrm{NH}}_3 \to {\mathrm{NH}}_4^ + + {\mathrm{NH}}_2^ -$$\end{document}</tex-math><inline-graphic xlink:href="42004_2019_204_Article_IEq1.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> (Fig. <xref rid="Fig2" ref-type="fig">2a</xref>). Between 297 and 430 GPa, the NH<sub>3</sub> structure adopts the space group <italic>P</italic>2<sub>1</sub>/<italic>m</italic>. The <inline-formula id="IEq2"><alternatives><mml:math><mml:msubsup><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">NH</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>4</mml:mn></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mo>+</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:msubsup></mml:math><tex-math id="IEq2_TeX">\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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				\begin{document}$${\mathrm{NH}}_4^ +$$\end{document}</tex-math><inline-graphic xlink:href="42004_2019_204_Article_IEq2.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> unit and N–H chain exist in this structure, which is also the result of self-ionization<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR35">35</xref></sup>. At pressures above 430 GPa, NH<sub>3</sub> transforms into a <italic>Pnma</italic> structure that shows no self-ionization.<fig id="Fig2"><label>Fig. 2</label><caption xml:lang="en"><p>Structures of corresponding compounds under high pressure. NH<sub>3</sub> structures in space group of <bold>a</bold><italic>Pma</italic>2 under 150 GPa, <bold>b</bold><italic>P</italic>2<sub>1</sub>/<italic>m</italic> under 350 GPa, <bold>c</bold><italic>Pnma</italic> at 600 GPa. <bold>d</bold> NH<sub>3</sub>He structure in space group of <italic>P</italic>2<sub>1</sub>2<sub>1</sub>2<sub>1</sub> under 600 GPa. <bold>e</bold> H<sub>2</sub>O structure in space group of <italic>Pbcm</italic> under 400 GPa. <bold>f</bold> (H<sub>2</sub>O)<sub>2</sub>He structure in space group of <italic>Ibam</italic> under 400 GPa. The blue and red balls represent N and O atoms; the small and large white balls represent the H and the He atoms</p></caption><graphic specific-use="HTML" mime-subtype="PNG" xlink:href="42004_2019_204_Fig2_HTML.png"/></fig></p><p id="Par8">The structure parameters, including the space groups, the lattice parameters, and the atom positions, are shown in Supplementary Table <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">1</xref>–<xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">4</xref>. The structure of NH<sub>3</sub>He has space group <italic>P</italic>2<sub>1</sub>2<sub>1</sub>2<sub>1</sub>, as shown in Fig. <xref rid="Fig2" ref-type="fig">2d</xref>. At 50 GPa, the lattice constants are <italic>a</italic> = 4.168 Å, <italic>b</italic> = 3.356 Å, and <italic>c</italic> = 5.406 Å. The NH<sub>3</sub> molecules remain in this compound. The insertion of He actually keeps the NH<sub>3</sub> molecular lattice from self-ionization when pressure increases. However, these NH<sub>3</sub> molecules are lower in symmetry compared with free molecules due to the intermolecular interactions. There are two different N–H bond lengths of lengths 1.021 and 1.017 Å at 50 GPa. At the same pressure, the nearest He–H, He–N, and N–N distances are 1.789, 2.158, and 2.756 Å, and the next-nearest N–H distance is 1.781 Å. It is interesting that the unreacted NH<sub>3</sub> crystal has the same <italic>P</italic>2<sub>1</sub>2<sub>1</sub>2<sub>1</sub> space group. At 50 GPa, its lattice parameters are <italic>a</italic> = 2.740 Å, <italic>b</italic> = 4.522 Å, and <italic>c</italic> = 4.757 Å. The N–H bond lengths are 1.026 and 1.014 Å, and the next-nearest and third-nearest N–H distances are 1.709 and 1.814 Å.</p><p id="Par9">He insertion into H<sub>2</sub>O has been demonstrated in the work<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR33">33</xref></sup> of Liu et al. H<sub>2</sub>O forms a compound with He at a ratio of 2:1. We chose three structures of H<sub>2</sub>O for the stability analysis, which have space groups <italic>Cmc</italic>2<sub>1</sub> (ice XI), <italic>Pn</italic><inline-formula id="IEq3"><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mover accent="true"><mml:mrow><mml:mn>3</mml:mn></mml:mrow><mml:mo>¯</mml:mo></mml:mover></mml:math><tex-math id="IEq3_TeX">\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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				\begin{document}$$\bar 3$$\end{document}</tex-math><inline-graphic xlink:href="42004_2019_204_Article_IEq3.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula><italic>m</italic> (ice X), and <italic>Pbcm</italic>. The structures with space group <italic>Cmc</italic>2<sub>1</sub> (ice XI) are stable at a pressure range below 100 GPa. When the pressure is higher than 100 GPa, the three structures become very close in energy up to 309 GPa. Above 309 GPa, <italic>Pbcm</italic> becomes the distinct thermodynamically stable structure. Figure <xref rid="Fig1" ref-type="fig">1b</xref> shows the reaction enthalpies of He insertion into H<sub>2</sub>O molecular crystals. Our calculations show that at pressures above 300 GPa, H<sub>2</sub>O and He can react to form a stable (H<sub>2</sub>O)<sub>2</sub>He compound. This compound adopts a structure with space group <italic>Ibam</italic>. The driving force for forming such compounds is quite large since the reaction enthalpy reaches 0.95 eV/f.u. when the pressure is 600 GPa. This result agrees well with previous work<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR33">33</xref></sup>. For the three phases of H<sub>2</sub>O at around 300 GPa, the pressure at which He insertion become stable, share very similar structural features. The three phases lose the features of the H<sub>2</sub>O molecule and become A<sub>2</sub>B type ionic crystals. The energies of the three structures are also very similar since the structural differences between them do not contribute significantly to the energy. This is the major difference between the behavior of H<sub>2</sub>O and NH<sub>3</sub>. As shown earlier, NH<sub>3</sub> remains a molecular crystal at the pressures of interest above 430 GPa while He insertion is energetically favored.</p></sec><sec id="Sec4"><title>Electronic structure</title><p id="Par10">In order to analyze the bonding features of He inserted H<sub>2</sub>O and NH<sub>3</sub> we calculated the electron localization function (ELF). In Fig. <xref rid="Fig3" ref-type="fig">3a</xref> and b, the ELFs of NH<sub>3</sub> in the <italic>Pma</italic>2 structure below 250 GPa and <italic>P</italic>2<sub>1</sub>/<italic>m</italic> structure below 400 GPa are shown, respectively. The electrons are found to be strongly localized between H and N, which is typical for the strong covalent N–H bonds. The electrons are also largely localized in the inter-molecule space due to the hydrogen bonding effect. The most important features of the electronic structure are shown in Fig. <xref rid="Fig3" ref-type="fig">3c</xref>, i.e., there is hardly any ELF in the regions between the He atoms and the H<sub>2</sub>O or NH<sub>3</sub> molecules. This strongly suggests that He atoms do not form any type of chemical bond with neighboring atoms. Figure <xref rid="Fig3" ref-type="fig">3d</xref> shows the ELF of H<sub>2</sub>O in the <italic>Pbcm</italic> structure below 600 GPa projected onto the (001) plane. It clearly shows a chain structure formed by connecting O atoms with shared H atoms. The ELF of (H<sub>2</sub>O)<sub>2</sub>He compound (Fig. <xref rid="Fig3" ref-type="fig">3e</xref>) again shows no bond formation between He and the neighboring atoms.<fig id="Fig3"><label>Fig. 3</label><caption xml:lang="en"><p>The ELF of NH<sub>3</sub>+He and H<sub>2</sub>O+He systems. <bold>a</bold> NH<sub>3</sub> in space group of <italic>Pma</italic>2 under 250 GPa; <bold>b</bold> NH<sub>3</sub> in <italic>P</italic>2<sub>1</sub>/<italic>m</italic> under 400 GPa; <bold>c</bold> NH<sub>3</sub>He in space group of <italic>P</italic>2<sub>1</sub>2<sub>1</sub>2<sub>1</sub> below 600 GPa; <bold>d</bold> H<sub>2</sub>O in space group of <italic>Pbcm</italic> under 600 GPa; <bold>e</bold> (H<sub>2</sub>O)<sub>2</sub>He in space group of <italic>Ibam</italic> below 600 GPa</p></caption><graphic specific-use="HTML" mime-subtype="PNG" xlink:href="42004_2019_204_Fig3_HTML.png"/></fig></p><p id="Par11">The absence of chemical bond connecting He and its neighboring atoms is also indicated by other electronic structure methods. Interestingly, the electronic density of states (DOS) and electronic projected DOS (PDOS) of He inserted compounds resemble very similar features as in those without He insertion (Supplementary Fig. <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">1</xref>), which strongly suggests the lack of strong chemical bonding between He and the neighboring molecules. The insertion of He does noticeably change the band gap (Supplementary Note <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">1</xref>), which is due to the fact that the insertion increases the distances between the neighboring molecules. After forming compounds with He, the band gap of H<sub>2</sub>O increases from 9.25 to 10.06 eV; and the band gap of NH<sub>3</sub> increases from 3.01 to 4.06 eV. We also calculated the integrated crystal orbital Hamilton population<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR36">36</xref></sup> that can show the bond strength (Supplementary Note <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">2</xref>, Supplementary Tables <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">5</xref> and <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">6</xref>). The values are generally small, consistent with the ELF and PDOS results. However, some values are not negligible. This is due to the fact that COHP are calculated by projecting crystal orbitals to atomic orbitals, which might erroneously lead to finite contributions of He atomic orbitals.</p></sec><sec id="Sec5"><title>Madelung energy analysis</title><p id="Par12">We analyze the mechanism that stabilizes the He insertion into NH<sub>3</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>O. Regardless whether the molecules are maintained or not under high pressure, the atoms (H, N, O) are highly charged, and the change of the electrostatic energy (Madelung energy) upon the insertion of He atoms is the major driving force of the reactions. Similar to ionic compounds such as MgF<sub>2</sub>, the charges of the atoms change only slightly with increasing pressure (Supplementary Fig. <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">2</xref>), therefore the change of the Madelung energy is mainly caused by the displacement of the molecules or atoms.</p><p id="Par13">First, we decompose the reaction enthalpy Δ<italic>H</italic> into the change in internal energy Δ<italic>E</italic> and the compression work Δ<italic>PV</italic>. The results are shown in Fig. <xref rid="Fig4" ref-type="fig">4a</xref>. for NH<sub>3</sub> and in Fig. <xref rid="Fig4" ref-type="fig">4b</xref> for H<sub>2</sub>O. NH<sub>3</sub>He becomes stable at around 45 GPa, which is due to the contributions from the decrease in both Δ<italic>PV</italic> and Δ<italic>E</italic>, although the former term is negative whereas the latter term is positive. Due to the complex phase transitions of the NH<sub>3</sub> crystal, Δ<italic>PV</italic> and Δ<italic>E</italic> do not change monotonically, although their sum Δ<italic>H</italic> does. Roughly speaking, the stabilization of NH<sub>3</sub>He is due to the decrease in Δ<italic>PV</italic> energy pressures below 400 GPa, whereas due to the decrease in Δ<italic>E</italic> when the pressure is above 400 GPa.<fig id="Fig4"><label>Fig. 4</label><caption xml:lang="en"><p>The changes of energies with pressure. The internal energy <italic>ΔE</italic> and the <italic>PV</italic> work for the enthalpy change in <bold>a</bold> NH<sub>3</sub> + He system and <bold>b</bold> H<sub>2</sub>O + He system. The change in the Madelung energy compared with the change in the internal energy <italic>ΔE</italic> in <bold>c</bold> NH<sub>3</sub> + He system and <bold>d</bold> H<sub>2</sub>O + He system</p></caption><graphic specific-use="HTML" mime-subtype="PNG" xlink:href="42004_2019_204_Fig4_HTML.png"/></fig></p><p id="Par14">For He insertion in H<sub>2</sub>O, the internal energy change Δ<italic>E</italic> is 1.05 eV at ambient pressure, which does not favor He insertion. While the pressure increases, Δ<italic>E</italic> decreases somewhat up to 50 GPa and then increases significantly up to 250 GPa. In contrast, the Δ<italic>PV</italic> term decreases by about 1.25 eV from 100 GPa to 300 GPa, which greatly favors He insertion under high pressure. However, the He inserted compounds only become thermodynamically stable at pressures &gt;309 GPa at which the change in internal energy Δ<italic>E</italic> significantly decreases from its peak value at 250 GPa. Therefore, the stabilization of He insertion results from both the changes in the internal energy and the reduction in the volume.</p><p id="Par15">We calculated the change in the Madelung energy Δ<italic>E</italic><sub>M</sub> for both of the He inserted molecular crystals and compared them with the change in the internal energy Δ<italic>E</italic> in Fig. <xref rid="Fig4" ref-type="fig">4c</xref>, d. In both cases the Δ<italic>E</italic><sub>M</sub> and Δ<italic>E</italic> changes are almost parallel with increasing pressure, indicating that the major part of the change in Δ<italic>E</italic> arises from the change in the Madelung energy. The kinks in Δ<italic>E</italic><sub>M</sub> and Δ<italic>E</italic> originate from the structural transitions that occur in NH<sub>3</sub> under pressure. The value of Δ<italic>E</italic><sub>M</sub> for He insertion in H<sub>2</sub>O increases up to about 250 GPa, and then decreases in a similar way to Δ<italic>E</italic>.</p><p id="Par16">Interestingly, although methane (CH<sub>4</sub>) is not a polar molecule, it still presents the above driving force for the He insertion (Supplementary Fig. <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">3</xref>). This is due to the fact that both C and H atoms are still highly charged, despite that the molecules are non-polar due to their highly symmetric geometry. The large number of positively charged H atoms causes strong repulsive interactions among the molecules under high pressure, which will be lessened by the insertion of He atoms. Our calculations clearly reveal a strong driving force for the insertion of He into CH<sub>4</sub> lattice (Supplementary Fig. <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">3</xref>).</p><p id="Par17">The large difference between the He insertion pressures for NH<sub>3</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>O is originated from their structure features. Although both molecules are strongly polarized, NH<sub>3</sub> consists of three N–H bonds forming a rigid pyramid structure. Furthermore, the cation/anion ratio is 3:1 that is higher than the 2:1 of H<sub>2</sub>O. Comparing to H<sub>2</sub>O, it is harder to reduce the volume and the strong H–H repulsive electrostatic interactions in NH<sub>3</sub> molecular crystal under high pressure. Therefore, the energy gain by inserting He in the crystal is more significant for NH<sub>3</sub> than H<sub>2</sub>O.</p><p id="Par18">Besides reaction pressure, another major difference between NH<sub>3</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>O is that the former remains a molecular crystal while He insertion occurs above 50 GPa; whereas H<sub>2</sub>O has already lost its molecule features and becomes an A<sub>2</sub>B type ionic compound at the pressure of insertion. Therefore, the He insertion in H<sub>2</sub>O is very similar to that in an A<sub>2</sub>B ionic compound, which has been discussed in detail in our previous work<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR29">29</xref></sup>. In contrast to H<sub>2</sub>O, NH<sub>3</sub> molecules remain in the He inserted compound. The reduction of the volume (correspondingly the <italic>PV</italic> term) and the Madelung energy during He insertion in NH<sub>3</sub> is achieved by reorienting the NH<sub>3</sub> molecules. Such reorientations can increase the size of the intermolecular space, which can accommodate inserted He atoms. He insertion actually prevent the ionization and hydrogen-bond symmetrization for both H<sub>2</sub>O and NH<sub>3</sub>. In NH<sub>3</sub>He compound, NH<sub>3</sub> keeps a molecular form from 0 to 600 GPa. Also, from the comparison of intermolecular and intramolecular H–O distance (Supplementary Notes <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">3</xref> and <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">4</xref>, and Supplementary Figs. <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">4</xref> and <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">5</xref>), we can also see the hydrogen-bond symmetrization happens at a higher pressure in He inserted H<sub>2</sub>O. The ionization in the compressed ice decreases the internal energy. This is why the Madelung (and the internal) energy actually increases upon He insertion in the pressure range from 100 to 250 GPa (Fig. <xref rid="Fig4" ref-type="fig">4b</xref>). Only while the H<sub>2</sub>O phase becomes totally ionized, the insertion of He will lower the Madelung energy (and the internal energy) and make (H<sub>2</sub>O)<sub>2</sub>He stable. This is another reason that the reaction pressure of forming (H<sub>2</sub>O)<sub>2</sub>He is much higher than that of forming NH<sub>3</sub>He.</p><p id="Par19">In summary, we demonstrate that He can be inserted into both NH<sub>3</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>O, which can form stable compounds under high pressure. Although the driving force of such an insertion reaction are the reduction of the Madelung energies in both cases, the reaction mechanisms are quite different in the two molecular crystals. He insertion into H<sub>2</sub>O only happens at very high pressures, while the H<sub>2</sub>O molecules have dissociated and become an ionic compound. The insertion of He is similar to the reaction of He with Na<sub>2</sub>O or MgF<sub>2</sub>. In contrast, the NH<sub>3</sub> molecules remain in the He inserted compounds, and the mechanism of the insertion including the reduction of the volume and the Madelung energy are achieved by reorientation of the NH<sub>3</sub> molecules. Our work further extends the reactivity of He to crystals of highly polarized molecules.</p></sec></sec><sec id="Sec6" sec-type="methods"><title>Methods</title><sec id="Sec7"><title>Structure search</title><p id="Par20">In order to find the structures of He inserted NH<sub>3</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>O, we employed the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm as implemented in the CALYPSO code (Crystal structure AnaLYsis by PSO)<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR37">37</xref>–<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR40">40</xref></sup>. The structures of NH<sub>3</sub>He and (H<sub>2</sub>O)<sub>2</sub>He as well as the pure NH<sub>3</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>O are searched under 100, 200, 400, and 600 GPa. In all, 2, 3, and 4 formula units are used for the searches. For each composition and pressure, the structure search are carried out for 30 generations and in some cases for multiple times. In each generation, 60% new randomly created structures are added and 40 percent of the structures are generated using the PSO method. Besides using the PSO algorithm<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR41">41</xref>,<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR42">42</xref></sup> the CALYPSO code also employs techniques such as application of symmetry constraints, a bond characterization matrix, and coordinate characterization functions to improve the search efficiency. Its accuracy has been proven in numerous previous works. The stable structures are further optimized using density-functional theory (DFT) total energy calculations.</p></sec><sec id="Sec8"><title>Electronic structure and total energy calculations</title><p id="Par21">The formation enthalpies and electronic properties are calculated using DFT implemented in VASP<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR43">43</xref></sup>. The DFT calculations were performed using a generalized gradient approximation exchange-correlation functional using the Perdew–Burke–Ernzerhof density functional)<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR44">44</xref></sup>. A hybrid functional based on the framework of Heyd–Scusera–Ernzerhof was tested (Supplementary Note <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">5</xref> and Supplementary Fig. <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">6</xref>). The projector augmented wave (PAW)<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR45">45</xref>,<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR46">46</xref></sup> method was used to describe electron-ion interactions. The validity of PAW potentials under extremely high pressures are tested by comparing the calculated equation of states of NH<sub>3</sub>He and (H<sub>2</sub>O)<sub>2</sub>He with those calculated by a full potential linear augmented plane wave<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR47">47</xref></sup> method (Supplementary Note <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">6</xref> and Supplementary Fig. <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">7</xref>). For the plane-wave DFT calculations, we set the cut-off energy as 1400 eV, which guarantees that the enthalpy is converged to within 0.01  meV. Also, the Monkhorst-Pack k-mesh has an interval smaller than 2<italic>π</italic> × 0.05<sup>−1</sup>. The employed k-mesh is shown in Supplementary Table <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">7</xref>. The structures are optimized till the total energies converge to 0.1 meV. The self-consistent calculations of the electronic structures converge with a criterion of 0.01 meV for the energy. The effects of dispersion forces<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR48">48</xref></sup> (van der Waals interactions) and zero-point energy<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR49">49</xref></sup> are also tested. Their influences to the reaction enthalpies for the He insertion into NH<sub>3</sub>He and (H<sub>2</sub>O)<sub>2</sub>He are quite small (Supplementary Notes <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">7</xref> and <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">8</xref>, and Supplementary Figs. <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">8</xref> and <xref rid="MOESM1" ref-type="media">9</xref>) and will not change the major conclusions of the current work.</p></sec><sec id="Sec9"><title>Madelung energy calculation</title><p id="Par22">The Madelung energy calculations are performed by a method implemented in VESTA<sup><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CR50">50</xref></sup>. A Fourier Transform method is used in this code. There are two parameters; the ionic radius and the cut-off frequency, which are mentioned in the VESTA manual. The charge distribution <italic>ρ</italic>(<italic>r</italic>) is defined inside the ionic sphere. The charge distribution can be described by <italic>ρ</italic>(<italic>r</italic>) = <italic>ρ</italic><sub>0</sub>[1 − 6(<italic>r</italic>/<italic>s</italic>)<sup>2</sup> + 8(<italic>r</italic>/<italic>s</italic>)<sup>3</sup> − 3(<italic>r</italic>/<italic>s</italic>)<sup>4</sup>] for <italic>r</italic> &lt; <italic>s</italic> else <italic>ρ</italic>(<italic>r</italic>) = 0. Here, <italic>s</italic> is the sphere radius. The radius <italic>s</italic> is no larger than one-half of the interatomic distance and can readily be determined by a convergent procedure. The cut-off frequency is set at the recommended value of 2.0<sup>−1</sup> as given in the VESTA manual.</p></sec></sec></body><back><ack><title>Acknowledgements</title><p>M.M. acknowledges the support of NSF CAREER award 1848141 and ACS PRF 50249-UN16. D.Y. acknowledges the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) for the grants under Nos. 21434001 and 21374011. Z.L. acknowledges the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2018M630064). R.J.N. and C.J.P. acknowledge funding from EPSRC under Grants EP/P034616/1 and EP/P022596/1. We acknowledge the use of computational resources from the Beijing Computational Science Research Center to compete the most calculation of this work. Part of the calculations are performed on NSF-funded XSEDE resources (TG-DMR130005) especially on the Stampede cluster run by Texas Advanced Computing Center.</p></ack><notes notes-type="author-contribution"><title>Author contributions</title><p>Y.B. and Z.L. contribute equally on this project. M.S.M. proposed the mechanism and designed the study. Y.B. and Z.L. conducted most calculations. M.S.M., D.Y., and H.L. guided and advised the research. All the authors were involved in the analysis of the results. M.S.M., Z.L., J.B., Y.B., J.S., C.J.P., and R.J.N. wrote and revised the paper.</p></notes><notes notes-type="data-availability"><title>Data availability</title><p>The data supporting this publication are available from the authors on request.</p></notes><notes notes-type="ethics"><sec id="FPar1"><title>Competing interests</title><p id="Par23">The authors declare no competing interests.</p></sec></notes><ref-list id="Bib1"><title>References</title><ref-list><ref id="CR1"><label>1.</label><mixed-citation publication-type="journal"><person-group person-group-type="author"><name><surname>Pauling</surname><given-names>L</given-names></name></person-group><article-title xml:lang="en">The formulas of antimonic acid and the antimonates</article-title><source>J. Am. Chem. 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