Volume 14 Issue 12, December 2015

The Innovation Forum on Quantum Technologies aims to help academics start technology companies.

Twenty years ago, the 'phonon-glass, electron-crystal' concept changed thinking in thermoelectric materials research, resulting in new high-performance materials and an increased focus on controlling structure and chemical bonding to minimize irreversible heat transport in crystals.

The propagation of plasmons in graphene–hexagonal boron nitride moiré patterns is experimentally studied for the first time via infrared scattering near-field optical spectroscopy.

Strength, ductility and corrosion resistance have been simultaneously obtained in a low-density lithium-containing magnesium alloy, thereby enhancing its potential use in transportation.

An implantable, flexible mesh with embedded electrodes for sensing neural activity in vivo improves brain-sampling efficiency and reduces the amount of cortical tissue injured.

Self-assembling covalent organic frameworks can boost electrode performance for the catalytic reduction of carbon dioxide.

This Review discusses the physics of electrical contacts to 2D semiconductors and the strategies adopted to improve charge injection in these materials. The requirements for efficient spin injection in spintronic devices are also presented.

Highly bendable yet unstretchable ultrathin sheets can wrap a liquid droplet to form an optimal non-spherical shape that minimizes the unwrapped interfacial area, regardless of interfacial energies and the sheet’s mechanical properties.

Polymer materials with decoupled spatial structure and mechanical performance can be designed by tuning the relative concentration of two types of metal–ligand crosslink.

Graphene/hBN moiré superlattices exhibit a new set of Dirac mini-bands, whose interband transitions—together with free electrons in the ordinary Dirac bands—modify the nature of the plasmons, as revealed by infrared near-field microscopy.

It is shown that the large thermoelectric capability of CoSb₃ skutterudite can be associated with a secondary conduction band with high valley degeneracy, which can converge with the light conduction band at high temperatures.

A magnesium-based alloy with large lithium content demonstrates high specific strength in combination with corrosion resistance, associated with the formation of a lithium carbonate surface film that protects the alloy from its environment.

The physicochemical properties of nanoparticles can sometimes prove difficult to characterize. Using plasmonic nanospectroscopy, hydride formation thermodynamics in individual Pd nanocrystals are found to be nearly size- and shape-independent.

Production of hydrogen by water splitting demands efficient Earth-abundant catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction. An efficient ternary pyrite-type cobalt phosphosulphide catalyst for photoelectrochemical hydrogen production is now identified.

A structural epitope on A-type lamins is significantly more exposed in the apical than in the basal nuclear lamina of human mesenchymal stem cells and fibroblasts under environmental conditions known to upregulate cell contractility.

A synthetic fibrous material with tunable mechanics and architecture allows researchers to reveal that cells use fibre recruitment to probe and respond to the mechanics of fibrillar matrices.

Matrix elasticity, which has been shown to regulate the fate of mesenchymal stem cells in vitro, can also be harnessed to therapeutically control bone formation.

A water-resistant sunblock based on bioadhesive nanoparticles encapsulating a model ultraviolet filter at low concentrations adheres to the stratum corneum without subsequent intra-epidermal or follicular penetration.

An ultra-flexible cylindrical mesh embedding multiple electrodes bending away from the device is used to probe rodents’ neural activity in vivo. This geometry improves the neuron–probe contact and reduces tissue response in chronic applications.