Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Contemporary macromolecular chemistry and physics offer interesting options for making, characterizing and manipulating single polymer chains. Although it is not yet possible to emulate the structural control and functional ability of biopolymers, recent advances have opened up interesting avenues for applications of these synthetic systems in microelectronics, photovoltaics, catalysis and biotechnology.
Topological insulators — insulators or semiconductors with metallic states present at their boundaries — are the 'rising stars' of condensed-matter physics. This Perspective introduces these materials and their properties, and looks at the challenges and opportunities the community faces.
When cells interact with an artificial surface, the result is a rapidly evolving and complex interface. This Perspective discusses how expressing the properties of both the cell and the substrate in chemical terms can aid in future material design. We also explore the importance of using multifunctional surfaces with quantitative, dynamic capabilities.
The efficient engineering of nanostructures with semiconducting properties is vital to the development of organic electronics. This Perspective discusses a variety of techniques for fabricating such macromolecules, including graphene carving, the stimulus-induced synthesis of conjugated polymers and surface-assisted synthesis, and considers their potential for reproducing chemically and spatially precise molecular arrangements, that is 'molecular blueprints'.
Recently, individual organic molecules have been imaged with atomic resolution using non-contact atomic force microscopy with functionalized tips and scanning tunnelling hydrogen microscopy. The resulting applications of these techniques and further improvements of ultra-high spatially resolved molecular investigations are discussed in this Perspective.
Phenalenyl — a triangular neutral radical consisting of three adjacent benzene rings — and π-conjugated derivatives based on the same motif, can be viewed as 'open-shell graphene fragments'. This Perspective discusses their electronic-spin structures, the properties that arise from their unpaired electrons, and highlights their potential applications for molecular spin devices.
