Volume 12 Issue 11, November 2017

A macroscopically homogeneous emulsion with bicontinuous microstructure is created by simple shaking of a mixture containing polymers, nanoparticles and two immiscible fluids.

An improved industrial manufacturability has been achieved for a hybrid water-treatment membrane that exhibits high water permeance, prolonged high salt and dye rejection under cross-flow conditions and better resistance to chlorine treatment.

Size matters when it comes to developing next-generation precision medications and diagnostic tools.

This Review describes progress in the fabrication of semiconductor quantum-dot structures, which are approaching the ideal single-photon emitter, and highlights the remaining challenges.

The deterministic nucleation of single skyrmions at a controlled position along multilayered magnetic racetracks is demonstrated by exploiting spin-orbit torques without the need of in-plane magnetic fields.

A transition from optical transport to quantum confinement, observed in a size-tunable circular graphene p–n junction could enable switching and guiding of Dirac electrons.

Electric conductance through an atomic cluster shows signatures of a Coulomb blockade effect with an on/off ratio of ∼600.

A plasmonic tweezer selectively attracts or repels enantiomers based on their handedness.

Polymer–nanoparticle binding stabilizes bijels with sub-micrometre domain size.

Sequential heteroepitaxy of transition-metal dichalcogenide polymorphs with different electronic properties is used to build coplanar ultrathin circuitry with atomic-scale precision.

A specific molecular conformation serves as an information carrier for signal transfer and processing in a molecular device.

Bottom-up fabrication of GNR heterojunctions exhibiting atomically perfect heterojunction interfaces can be obtained from a single molecular precursor via post-growth modification

Scalable graphene-based membranes reject more than 80% NaCl under aggressive shear for more than 20 h and exhibit chlorine resistance.

A coherent nanopattern of molecular recognition sites, termed a mologram, enables label-free analysis of biochemical interactions in complex samples.

The glomerulus can use its glycocalyx layer to precisely control renal clearance and tumour targeting of sub-nm gold nanoclusters with size differences of just a few atoms.

How can school pupils be introduced to materials science and nanotechnology? Pierfrancesco Riccardi and Claudio Goletti illustrate the advantages of extracurricular activities designed by researchers and teachers.