Nature Materials - CURRENT ISSUE : August 2008 - Vol 7 No 8
- Cultural channels
- Research in China: Enter the dragon
- Quantum dots: Cut down on blinking
- Lithium intercalation: A domino-cascade model
LATEST CONTENT
Focus
China
Focus issueSince the opening of the country to the outside world thirty years ago, the output of scientific publications in materials science from China has risen from almost nowhere into now being the third largest in the world. In this special issue of Nature Materials we take a look at this rapid development in China.
Current issue
Cellular engineering
Letter by Gillette et al.The contractile forces of cells can cause extracellular matrices to detach from their surroundings, which is problematic for biological studies and tissue engineering. Now, multiple phases of cell-seeded hydrogels can be integrated using a collagen-fibre-mediated method, resulting in the construction of well-defined and stable patterns of three-dimensional matrices.
Current issue
Crystals are the answer
Article by Shportko et al.Although phase-change materials are of significant importance for optical and electronic information storage applications, the search for new materials so far has been based on empirical methods. Now, the discovery that their crystalline phase shows resonant bonding opens the way to a deterministic search for new phase-change materials.
Current issue
Lithium intercalation
Article by Delmas et al.Although lithium iron phosphate is a promising electrode material for lithium-ion batteries, its intercalation mechanism remains unclear. Characterization by X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy demonstrates that the lithium deintercalation process occurs as a wave moving through the crystal, and can be described by a domino-cascade model.
Current issue
Nanocrystals
Article by Mahler et al.One of the obstacles in using nanocrystals as fluorophores is that they tend to blink. This was though to be a very general feature. Now, very-high-quality core–shell CdSe/CdS nanocrystals showing highly reduced blinking have been grown. The reduced blinking seems to be related to the thickness of the CdS shell and the high quality of the core–shell interfaces.
Current issue
How tough is bone?
Article by Koester et al.The propagation of sub-millimetre cracks reveals how the numerous internal structural dimensions in bone give rise to orientation and scale variation in its toughness. The true transverse toughness of cortical bone was found to be far higher than previously reported.