Engineering articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Linear acoustic metamaterials based on resonances are generally tunable but limited by their narrow bands. Here, Fang et al. fabricate one- and two-dimensional nonlinear acoustic metamaterials with a broadband, low-frequency, response—greatly suppressing low frequency noise.

    • Xin Fang
    • , Jihong Wen
    •  & Dianlong Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Monomer sequence is an emerging tool to precisely encode information (and thus structure and function) into polymer systems. Here the authors use sequence-control in complex coacervates to understand how monomer sequence translates to physical material properties.

    • Li-Wei Chang
    • , Tyler K. Lytle
    •  & Sarah L. Perry

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coating porous membranes with nanoparticles can enhance their separation and antifouling properties, but methods to do so remain complex. Here, Lee and colleagues use solvent transfer-induced phase separation to prepare nanoparticle-functionalized hollow fiber membranes from bicontinuous interfacially jammed emulsion gels.

    • Martin F. Haase
    • , Harim Jeon
    •  & Daeyeon Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Implementing a nucleic acid preconcentration method can improve the sensitivity of microfluidic analysis systems. Here Friedrich et al. concentrate DNA by many orders of magnitude using pressure-driven flow, which could lead to a simple and practical microanalysis platform.

    • Sarah M. Friedrich
    • , Jeffrey M. Burke
    •  & Tza-Huei Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spider-silk-mimicking microfibers often suffer from low efficiency and durability in water collection. Here, the authors fabricate robust microfibers with spindle cavity-knots and different topological fiber-networks with improved water-collecting performance

    • Ye Tian
    • , Pingan Zhu
    •  & Liqiu Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Shape memory materials are capable of returning to their original form post-deformation, but those with high actuation performances remain scarce. Here the authors reveal that CaFe2As2 exhibits cryogenic linear shape memory behaviour with high recoverable strain and yield strength, owing to a reversible uni-axial phase transformation.

    • John T. Sypek
    • , Hang Yu
    •  & Seok-Woo Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The signalling scheme used in access networks require electrical bandwidths many times greater than subscribers can utilise. Here, the authors describe a promising approach to achieve bidirectional transmission with bandwidth-efficient yet low-complexity coherent optical network unit transceiver.

    • M. S. Erkılınç
    • , D. Lavery
    •  & P. Bayvel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Origami is a popular method to design building blocks for mechanical metamaterials. Here, the authors assemble a volumetric origami-based structure, predict its axial and rotational movements during folding, and demonstrate the operation of mechanical one- and two-bit memory storage.

    • Hiromi Yasuda
    • , Tomohiro Tachi
    •  & Jinkyu Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How soft tissues respond to mechanical load is essential to their biological function. Here, the authors discover that – contrary to predictions of poroelasticity – fluid mobility in collagenous tissues induces drastic volume decrease with tensile loading and pronounced chemo-mechanical coupling.

    • Alexander E. Ehret
    • , Kevin Bircher
    •  & Edoardo Mazza

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Memristors can switch between high and low electrical-resistance states, but the switching behaviour can be unpredictable. Here, the authors harness this unpredictability to develop a memristor-based true random number generator that uses the stochastic delay time of threshold switching

    • Hao Jiang
    • , Daniel Belkin
    •  & Qiangfei Xia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical non-reciprocity achieved through refractive index modulation can have its challenges and limitations. Here, Dinc et al. introduce the concept of non-reciprocity based on synchronized spatio-temporal modulation of conductivity to achieve different types of non-reciprocal functionality.

    • Tolga Dinc
    • , Mykhailo Tymchenko
    •  & Harish Krishnaswamy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Devising effective swimming and propulsion strategies in microenvironments is attractive for drug delivery applications. Here Ahmed et al. demonstrate a micropropulsion strategy in which a combination of magnetic and acoustic fields is used to assemble and propel colloidal particles along channel walls.

    • Daniel Ahmed
    • , Thierry Baasch
    •  & Bradley J. Nelson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Soluble vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) enhances vascular engraftment of transplanted cells but the efficacy is low. Here, the authors show that VEGF-immobilized microparticles prolong survival of endothelial progenitors in vitro and in vivo by downregulating miR17 and upregulating CDKN1A and ZNF652.

    • Sezin Aday
    • , Janet Zoldan
    •  & Lino Ferreira

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is growing interest in the development of components to facilitate wireless communications in the terahertz but the characterization of these systems involve an unmodulated input. Here the authors demonstrate multiplexing and demultiplexing of data streams in the terahertz range using a real data link.

    • Jianjun Ma
    • , Nicholas J. Karl
    •  & Daniel M. Mittleman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Flexible flash memory is crucial to modern electronics, but its fabrication is challenging in the absence of suitable dielectric materials. Here, Lee et al. realize organic memory with retention over 10 years using tunneling and blocking dielectric layers prepared by initiated chemical vapor deposition.

    • Seungwon Lee
    • , Hyejeong Seong
    •  & Seunghyup Yoo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Producing hydrogen peroxide via electrochemical oxidation of water is an attractive route to this valuable product. Here the authors theoretically and experimentally investigate hydrogen peroxide production activity trends for a range of metal oxides and identify the optimal bias ranges for high Faraday efficiencies.

    • Xinjian Shi
    • , Samira Siahrostami
    •  & Jens K. Nørskov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cells contain isolated compartments where cascade enzymatic biochemical reactions occur to form essential biological products with high efficiency. Here the authors produce functional hydrogel particles with multiple compartments via microfluidics that contain spatially immobilized natural enzymes in distinct domains for one-pot, tandem reactions.

    • Hongliang Tan
    • , Song Guo
    •  & Chia-Hung Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The development of self-contained electrically driven soft actuators with high strain density is difficult. Here the authors show a single self-contained soft robust composite material that combines the elastic properties of a polymeric matrix and the extreme volume change accompanying liquid vapour transition.

    • Aslan Miriyev
    • , Kenneth Stack
    •  & Hod Lipson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Robots that can self-assemble into different morphologies are desired to perform tasks that require different physical capabilities. Mathews et al. design robots whose bodies and control systems can merge and split to form new robots that retain full sensorimotor control and act as a single entity.

    • Nithin Mathews
    • , Anders Lyhne Christensen
    •  & Marco Dorigo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Minerals are rarely explored as building blocks for dynamic inorganic materials. Here, the authors derive inspiration from fish scales to create mutable surfaces based on arrays of calcite crystals, in which one end of each crystal is immobilized in and regenerated from silicone, and the other functional end is left exposed.

    • Jaeseok Yi
    • , Yucai Wang
    •  & Bozhi Tian

  • Article
    | Open Access

    MOF-based membranes have shown great promise in separation applications, but producing thin membranes that allow for high fluxes remains challenging. Here, the authors use a gel–vapour deposition strategy to fabricate composite membranes with less than 20 nm thicknesses and high gas permeances and selectivities.

    • Wanbin Li
    • , Pengcheng Su
    •  & Eddy Zeng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Controlling all the optical properties of dielectric waveguides is a challenging task and often requires complicated core- and cladding designs. Here, Jiang et al. demonstrate that a thin metasurface coating can control several optical properties simultaneously over a broad frequency range.

    • Zhi Hao Jiang
    • , Lei Kang
    •  & Douglas H. Werner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Growing large single crystals cheaply and reliably for structural applications remains challenging. Here, the authors combine accelerated abnormal grain growth and cyclic heat treatments to grow a superelastic shape memory alloy single crystal to 70 cm.

    • Tomoe Kusama
    • , Toshihiro Omori
    •  & Ryosuke Kainuma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The miniaturization of antennas beyond a wavelength is limited by designs which rely on electromagnetic resonances. Here, Nan et al. have developed acoustically actuated antennas that couple the acoustic resonance of the antenna with the electromagnetic wave, reducing the antenna footprint by up to 100.

    • Tianxiang Nan
    • , Hwaider Lin
    •  & Nian Xiang Sun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Realizing metasurfaces with reconfigurability, high efficiency, and control over phase and amplitude is a challenge. Here, Li et al. introduce a reprogrammable hologram based on a 1-bit coding metasurface, where the state of each unit cell of the coding metasurface can be switched electrically.

    • Lianlin Li
    • , Tie Jun Cui
    •  & Shuang Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    At the molecular level, biological activities involve the transport of ions in a system. Here the authors demonstrate an ‘electron battery’ by inverting the configuration of a traditional Li-ion battery to generate an ionic current to interact with a biosystem for potential biomedical applications.

    • Chengwei Wang
    • , Kun (Kelvin) Fu
    •  & Liangbing Hu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cells in the connective tissue are surrounded by a heterogeneous network of biopolymers. Here, the authors investigate how such heterogeneity affects cellular mechanosensing by simulating the deformation response of experimental and modelled biopolymer networks to locally applied forces.

    • Farzan Beroz
    • , Louise M. Jawerth
    •  & Ned S. Wingreen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Uncertainties in contemporary extreme sea levels (ESL) from mean sea level rise (SLR) projections have been overlooked in broad-scale risk and adaptation studies. Here, the authors quantify the uncertainties in present-day global ESL estimates and find that they exceed those from global SLR projections.

    • T. Wahl
    • , I. D. Haigh
    •  & A. B. A. Slangen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metamaterials enable the realization of unique material properties such as coupling between strain and momentum in a fluid—known as Willis coupling. Here, Muhlesteinet al. use homogenization theory to better understand Willis coupling in acoustic metamaterials and demonstrate the unusual material response.

    • Michael B. Muhlestein
    • , Caleb F. Sieck
    •  & Michael R. Haberman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ion migration in perovskite solar cells are known to cause hysteresis and instability. Biet al., report a charge extraction layer based on graphene, fullerenes and carbon quantum dots which suppresses ion diffusion and enhances charge carrier diffusion leading to efficient devices with improved stability.

    • Enbing Bi
    • , Han Chen
    •  & Liyuan Han

  • Article
    | Open Access

    2D nanomaterials are promising capacitive energy storage materials, but their tendency to restack hinders electrolyte transport. Here, Yamauchi and colleagues introduce 2D ordered mesoporous carbons in between MXene layers, and metal removal affords all-carbon porous 2D–2D heterostructures in which restacking is prevented.

    • Jie Wang
    • , Jing Tang
    •  & Yusuke Yamauchi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Organic non-volatile memories based on ferroelectric and semiconductor polymers are one of promising candidates for flexible electronics, yet the relevant device physics remains elusive. Ghittorelliet al. show that quantum tunnelling and charge accumulation govern the ferroelectric memory operation.

    • Matteo Ghittorelli
    • , Thomas Lenz
    •  & Fabrizio Torricelli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Regulating guest access and release in porous materials remains an important goal. Here, May and colleagues elucidate the mechanism by which guest admission can be temperature-regulated in typical microporous materials, and experimentally exploit this process to achieve appreciable and reversible hydrogen storage.

    • Gang (Kevin) Li
    • , Jin Shang
    •  & Eric F. May

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Principles underlying crumpling of one-dimensional objects may be relevant to both biomolecular processes and to design of mechanical devices. By compacting various wires under rigid confinement and modelling observed geometric features, the authors show how friction, plasticity and torsion enhance disorder and lead to a transition from coiled to folded geometries.

    • M. Reza Shaebani
    • , Javad Najafi
    •  & Mehdi Habibi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Memristors are key structural units of complex memory and computing systems, yet most currently available memristors are based on materials that are not compatible with silicon technology. Here, the authors demonstrate a CMOS-compatible, self-rectifying memristor and arrays entirely based on p-Si/SiO2/n-Si.

    • Can Li
    • , Lili Han
    •  & Qiangfei Xia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hyperpolarized molecules provide unique contrast for MRI but due to their short relaxation time need to be prepared shortly before injection. Here the authors report a method for eliminating the main source of relaxation and producing frozen polarized substances that can be stored and transported.

    • Andrea Capozzi
    • , Tian Cheng
    •  & Arnaud Comment

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Large-scale commercialization of organic light-emitting diodes is impeded by the short operational lifetime of blue emitting materials. Leeet al. show a strategy to manage the energy dissipation on molecular dissociation using dopants with high triplet exciton energy that improves device stability.

    • Jaesang Lee
    • , Changyeong Jeong
    •  & Stephen R. Forrest

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global regulation of synaptic strengths in neural systems is known as homeoplasticity. Here, Gkoupideniset al. use an electrolyte to connect and control an array of organic electrochemical devices, in order to demonstrate behaviour that resembles homeoplasticity phenomena in the brain.

    • Paschalis Gkoupidenis
    • , Dimitrios A. Koutsouras
    •  & George G. Malliaras

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