Use Titlecaps package with achemso.bst

Question

ACS journals require the initial letter of each significant word in the reference titles to be capitalized. I was trying to follow the instruction here to modify achemso.bst, but encountered difficulty when trying to generate proper outputs from the original titles. The instruction says to change title ". " * output to title titlecap ". " * output, but the codes in achemso.bst are in the following form:

FUNCTION { format.title }
FUNCTION { format.title.article }
FUNCTION { format.title.techreport }

...

How do I properly insert titlecap into the achemso functions?

Below is an example document:

\documentclass[]{achemso}
\title[]{Simple Example}
\begin{document}
We have reviewed the studies \cite{Mattern2022,Uwada2012}.
\bibliography{example}
\bibliographystyle{achemso}
\end{document}

to be used with example.bib:

@article{Mattern2022,
abstract = {We study the ultrafast electronic transport of energy in a photoexcited nanoscale Au/Fe hetero-structure by modeling the spatiotemporal profile of energy densities that drives transient strain, which we quantify by femtosecond x-ray diffraction. This flow of energy is relevant for intrinsic demagnetization and ultrafast spin transport. We measured lattice strain for different Fe layer thicknesses ranging from few atomic layers to several nanometers and modeled the spatiotemporal flow of energy densities. The combination of a high electron-phonon coupling coefficient and a large Sommerfeld constant in Fe is found to yield electronic transfer of nearly all energy from Au to Fe within the first hundreds of femtoseconds.},
author = {Mattern, M. and von Reppert, A. and Zeuschner, S. P. and Pudell, J.-E. and K{\"{u}}hne, F. and Diesing, D. and Herzog, M. and Bargheer, M.},
doi = {10.1063/5.0080378},
issn = {0003-6951},
journal = {Appl. Phys. Lett.},
month = {feb},
number = {9},
pages = {092401},
title = {{Electronic energy transport in nanoscale Au/Fe hetero-structures in the perspective of ultrafast lattice dynamics}},
url = {https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0080378},
volume = {120},
year = {2022}
}
@article{Uwada2012,
author = {Uwada, Takayuki and Fujii, Sho and Sugiyama, Teruki and Usman, Anwar and Miura, Atsushi and Masuhara, Hiroshi and Kanaizuka, Katsuhiko and Haga, Masa-aki},
doi = {10.1021/am201799b},
issn = {1944-8244},
journal = {ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces},
month = {mar},
number = {3},
pages = {1158--1163},
title = {{Glycine Crystallization in Solution by CW Laser-Induced Microbubble on Gold Thin Film Surface}},
url = {https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/am201799b},
volume = {4},
year = {2012}
}

However, I want the title of Ref. 1 (Mattern2022) to be in title case, i.e., "Electronic Energy Transport in Nanoscale Au/Fe Heterostructures in the Perspective of Ultrafast Lattice Dynamics."

Answer 1

The approach is similar to that described in Implementation of "Title Case" in Bibtex.

Here, one change to your bib file is that the titles only be single, not double braced, as in

title = {Electronic energy transport in nanoscale Au/Fe hetero-structures in the perspective of ultrafast lattice dynamics},

Then, in a modified version of achemso.bst, add this function:

FUNCTION {titlecap}
{ duplicate$ empty$
    { pop$ "" }
    { "\titlecap{" swap$ * "}" * }
  if$
}

and add the command titlecap after the word title into those function definitions you wish to modify, as in

FUNCTION { format.title.article } {
  ctrl.article.title.bool
    {
      title empty$
        { }
        {
          title titlecap
          output
          next.punct.period 'next.punct.int :=
        }
      if$
    }
    { }
  if$
}

Thus, with this source code

\begin{filecontents*}[overwrite]{example.bib}
@article{Mattern2022,
abstract = {We study the ultrafast electronic transport of energy in a photoexcited nanoscale Au/Fe hetero-structure by modeling the spatiotemporal profile of energy densities that drives transient strain, which we quantify by femtosecond x-ray diffraction. This flow of energy is relevant for intrinsic demagnetization and ultrafast spin transport. We measured lattice strain for different Fe layer thicknesses ranging from few atomic layers to several nanometers and modeled the spatiotemporal flow of energy densities. The combination of a high electron-phonon coupling coefficient and a large Sommerfeld constant in Fe is found to yield electronic transfer of nearly all energy from Au to Fe within the first hundreds of femtoseconds.},
author = {Mattern, M. and von Reppert, A. and Zeuschner, S. P. and Pudell, J.-E. and K{\"{u}}hne, F. and Diesing, D. and Herzog, M. and Bargheer, M.},
doi = {10.1063/5.0080378},
issn = {0003-6951},
journal = {Appl. Phys. Lett.},
month = {feb},
number = {9},
pages = {092401},
title = {Electronic energy transport in nanoscale Au/Fe hetero-structures in the perspective of ultrafast lattice dynamics},
url = {https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0080378},
volume = {120},
year = {2022}
}
@article{Uwada2012,
author = {Uwada, Takayuki and Fujii, Sho and Sugiyama, Teruki and Usman, Anwar and Miura, Atsushi and Masuhara, Hiroshi and Kanaizuka, Katsuhiko and Haga, Masa-aki},
doi = {10.1021/am201799b},
issn = {1944-8244},
journal = {ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces},
month = {mar},
number = {3},
pages = {1158--1163},
title = {Glycine Crystallization in Solution by CW Laser-Induced Microbubble on Gold Thin Film Surface},
url = {https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/am201799b},
volume = {4},
year = {2012}
}
\end{filecontents*}
\documentclass[]{achemso}
\usepackage{titlecaps}
\title[]{Simple Example}
%\bibliographystyle{achemso}
\begin{document}
We have reviewed the studies \cite{Mattern2022,Uwada2012}.
\bibliography{example}
\end{document}

and the above modifications to achemso.bst, the output becomes

If one examines the resultant bbl file, one gets the desired syntax, with \titlecap{...}:

\bibitem[Mattern \latin{et~al.}(2022)Mattern, von Reppert, Zeuschner, Pudell,
  K{\"{u}}hne, Diesing, Herzog, and Bargheer]{Mattern2022}
Mattern,~M.; von Reppert,~A.; Zeuschner,~S.~P.; Pudell,~J.-E.; K{\"{u}}hne,~F.;
  Diesing,~D.; Herzog,~M.; Bargheer,~M. \titlecap{Electronic energy transport
  in nanoscale Au/Fe hetero-structures in the perspective of ultrafast lattice
  dynamics}. \emph{Appl. Phys. Lett.} \textbf{2022}, \emph{120}, 092401\relax
\mciteBstWouldAddEndPuncttrue
\mciteSetBstMidEndSepPunct{\mcitedefaultmidpunct}
{\mcitedefaultendpunct}{\mcitedefaultseppunct}\relax
\EndOfBibitem