Volume 15 Issue 10, October 2016

Although exciton–polariton lasers have been experimentally demonstrated in a variety of material systems, robust practical implementations are still challenging. Similarities with atomic Bose–Einstein condensates make the system suitable for chip-based quantum simulators for non-trivial many-body physics.

Ultra-low-power electronic switching of stable exciton–polariton spin states has now been achieved in a semiconductor microcavity. This opens a new route to the integration of spin-based photonics and electronics.

The discovery of a hypersonic bandgap in spider silk could drive the design of bio-inspired and biocompatible dynamic materials.

Computer networks, trained with data from delayed-fluorescence materials that have been successfully used in organic light-emitting diodes, facilitate the high-speed prediction of good emitters for display and lighting applications.

Self-propelled Janus particles with externally regulated anisotropic interactions can be made to swarm, cluster and form slithering chains.

This review discusses exciton–polaritons in microcavities and their emerging technological applications, with emphasis on the materials challenges for operation at room temperature.

The spin-switching of optically induced polariton condensates can be externally controlled with an electric field, with switching energies below 0.5 fJ.

Spider silk possesses a number of exemplary mechanical properties. A hypersonic phononic bandgap is now shown under dynamic loading.

Films based on π-stacked carbon nitride polymers are shown to bend rapidly and jump up to 10,000 times their thickness as a result of minimal variations—induced by changes in the ambient humidity or temperature—of absorbed water.

Experiments and theory show that plastic energy dissipation during cell deformation is linked to elastic cytoskeletal stresses.

Metal–dielectric Janus colloids subjected to perpendicular a.c. electric fields can self-organize into swarms, chains, clusters and isotropic gases, depending on the frequency of the field.

A large-area fabrication approach to achieve three-dimensional architectured metamaterials, with structural features spanning seven orders of magnitude, results in advanced mechanical properties, including high elasticity.

Excess electrons from intrinsic defects, dopants and photoexcitation play a key role in TiO₂ properties. Simulations now predict that excess electrons depend on the exposed anatase surface, the environment and the character of the electron donor.

It is shown that vanadium dioxide thin films can reversibly accommodate hydrogen within their lattice structures, while demonstrating an insulator–metal–insulator phase modulation with hydrogen doping.

A high-throughput virtual screening approach is used to select molecules with efficient, thermally activated delayed fluorescence. The good performance of several selected emitters in organic LED applications has also been confirmed experimentally.

A hydrogel patch delivering a combination of gene, drug and phototherapy leads to complete tumour remission and the absence of tumour recurrence in a colon cancer mouse model.