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Defects of a passive nematic liquid crystal made from actin filaments pattern the collective behaviour of active microtubules, creating macroscopic polar patterns and chiral loops.
Tissue fluidification in invasive breast carcinoma is accompanied by mechanical stresses that compromise nuclear integrity and liberate DNA, resulting in the activation of a pro-inflammatory response that shape tumour evolution and progression.
During mesodermal differentiation of living zebrafish embryos, individual cells probe the stiffness associated with the foam-like architecture of the tissue as a part of their mechanosensing responses.
Complex living structures with self-healing and regeneration capabilities are 3D printed using bioinks composed of fungal mycelium and an agar-based hydrogel.
The authors demonstrate a spectroscopic method, based on magnetotransport measurements, to quantitatively measure the size of the correlated gaps in twisted trilayer graphene and infer their topology.
The authors demonstrate that magnetic proximity interactions in a hexagonal boron nitride-encapsulated MoSe2/CrBr3 van der Waals heterostructure have a striking difference in the two (K, K′) valleys of a monolayer MoSe2.
High-density, highly stable coherent nanoprecipitates are created in Al alloys that enable high strength and creep resistance at 400 °C. This is realized via a growth-ledge-triggered in situ phase transformation assembling slow-diffusing solutes with high-solubility solutes into nanoprecipitates.
Electric fields typically break symmetry when applied as a stimulus to materials. Here, by forming a superlattice of BiFeO3 and TbScO3, it is shown that an electric field can repeatedly stabilize mixed-phase polar and antipolar BiFeO3.
In situ composites consisting of nanodiamond homogeneously dispersed in disordered multilayer graphene with incoherent interfaces and complex bonding are synthesized that exhibit an ultrahigh hardness and compressive strength, and excellent electrical conductivity.
Delivering inherently stable lithium-ion batteries with electrodes that can reversibly insert and extract large quantities of Li+ with inherent stability during cycling are key. Lithium-excess vanadium oxides with a disordered rocksalt structure are now investigated as high-capacity and long-life cathodes.
Carbon molecular sieves (CMS) are formed from pyrolysis of polymeric precursors, forming complex morphologies that enable gas separations. Here, by combining kinked and cross-linkable structures in the precursor, CMS membranes are reported that enable a broad spectrum of challenging gas separations.
The authors fabricate a fluxonium circuit using a granular aluminium nanoconstriction to replace the conventional superconductor–insulator–superconductor tunnel junction. Their characterization suggests that this approach will be a useful element in the superconducting qubit toolkit.
Both bosonic and fermionic collective states can emerge in two-dimensional semiconductor lattices, and mixing these species can further expand the landscape of quantum phases. Here, the authors report Bose–Fermi mixtures of neutral and charged excitons and the emergence of dual-density waves in an electrostatic lattice in a GaAs bilayer.
The stability of halide perovskite solar cells, determined by film morphology, is paramount to their commercialization. Here, the authors introduce a high-temperature DMSO-free method that enables better control of the grain size, texturing, orientation and crystallinity to achieve improved device operational stability.
Liquid crystal (LC) applications typically rely on defining the non-topological spatial patterns of the optical axis. Here, the authors demonstrate the topological steering of light by LC nematic vortices, futher establishing an analogy between topological light steering by LC vortices and cosmic strings.
Viscoelasticity is a universal mechanical feature of the extracellular matrix. Here the authors show that the extracellular matrix viscoelasticity guides tissue growth and symmetry breaking, a fundamental process in morphogenesis and oncogenesis.
Screening of hundreds of nanoparticle polymers identifies an effective and low-toxicity formulation for the functional delivery of RNA to the lungs of distinct animal species.
The authors present time-domain terahertz spectroscopy measurements on BaCo2(AsO4)2, a promising 3d transition-metal-based quantum spin liquid candidate.
To realize electronic operations beyond the von Neumann bottleneck, a new type of switch that can mimic self-learning is needed. Here, the authors demonstrate all-in-one-place logic and memory operations based on dynamic molecular switch that can emulate brain-like synaptic and Pavlovian response, bringing the field a step closer to molecular-scale hardware.
The authors report a crossover from easy-plane to easy-axis magnetic anisotropy in monolayer RuCl3, which they attribute to an in-plane distortion of the Cl atoms observed in electron diffraction that modify the non-Kitaev exchange terms. The results are useful for overcoming the challenge of realizing a quantum spin liquid.