Engineering articles within Nature Communications

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  • 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

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using chips that mimic the human brain to perform cognitive tasks, namely neuromorphic computing, calls for low power and high efficiency hardware. Here, Yaoet al. show on-chip analogue weight storage by integrating non-volatile resistive memory into a CMOS platform and test it in facial recognition.

    • Peng Yao
    • , Huaqiang Wu
    •  & He Qian

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Drug delivery in brain tumours is still a significant clinical concern. In this study, the authors develop a biomimetic lipoprotein nanoparticle for the efficient delivery of ATF5 siRNA inRas-activated brain cancer cells, where the nanoparticle is internalized by macropinocytosis in a Ras-dependent manner.

    • Jia-Lin Huang
    • , Gan Jiang
    •  & Xiao-Ling Gao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Water treatment processes mostly rely on the use of membranes and filters, which have high pumping costs and require periodic replacement. Here, the authors describe an efficient membraneless method that induces directed motion of suspended colloidal particles by exposing the suspension to CO2.

    • Sangwoo Shin
    • , Orest Shardt
    •  & Howard A. Stone

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ability to support the development of a premature fetus in the form of an extracorporeal system has had limited success. Here, the authors show that an extra-uterine device that mimics the intra-uterine environment can provide physiologic support for the extreme premature lamb fetus for four weeks.

    • Emily A. Partridge
    • , Marcus G. Davey
    •  & Alan W. Flake

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In order to fully utilize sulfur vacancies in MoS2 catalysts for industrial applications, a facile and general route for making sulfur vacancies in MoS2 is needed. Here, the authors introduce a scalable route towards generating sulfur vacancies on the MoS2basal plane using electrochemical desulfurization.

    • Charlie Tsai
    • , Hong Li
    •  & Frank Abild-Pedersen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Implantable insulin delivery devices can make a significant difference in the lives of patients although they are limited by the duration of their battery life, often requiring replacement. Here, the authors developed an implantable battery-less insulin delivery device with noninvasive actuation.

    • Seung Ho Lee
    • , Young Bin Lee
    •  & Young Bin Choy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Droplet manipulation is an essential task for designing microfluidic platforms such as lab-on-chip devices. Here Tanget al. develop a non-wettable mesh with reversible liquid adhesion controlled by mechanically inserting wettable pillars which allows for effective and rapid droplet manoeuvring.

    • Xin Tang
    • , Pingan Zhu
    •  & Liqiu Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carbon fibres are emerging as a promising material for multifunctional nanotextiles. Here, the authors show that diamond nanothread possesses excellent torsional deformation capability and interfacial load transfer efficiency, ideal for constructing next generation carbon fibres.

    • Haifei Zhan
    • , Gang Zhang
    •  & Yuantong Gu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Protonic ceramic fuel cells are promising for energy applications, but maintaining high performance with long-term stability is an issue. Here the authors use a stable yttrium-doped barium zirconate electrolyte, achieving a power output one order of magnitude higher than existing protonic ceramic fuel cells.

    • Kiho Bae
    • , Dong Young Jang
    •  & Joon Hyung Shim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    With societies phasing down the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), alternative environmentally-friendly refrigerants are required. Here the authors screen a large chemical database for replacements, performing simulations to show there are only a few candidate single-component fluids that can realistically replace HFCs.

    • Mark O. McLinden
    • , J. Steven Brown
    •  & Piotr A. Domanski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Targeted delivery of microparticles is desirable for rapid, sensitive biological assays or self-assembly process. Here Daset al. use catalytic reactions on the surface of microfluidic chambers to generate unidirectional flows that carry and deposit microparticles to selective regions of the chamber.

    • Sambeeta Das
    • , Oleg E. Shklyaev
    •  & Ayusman Sen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Numerous selective forces shape animal locomotion patterns and as a result, different animals evolved to use different gaits. Here, Ramdyaet al. use live and in silicoDrosophila, as well as an insect-model robot, to gain insights into the conditions that promote the ubiquitous tripod gait observed in most insects.

    • Pavan Ramdya
    • , Robin Thandiackal
    •  & Dario Floreano

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hydrogel actuators have been widely developed to be osmotic-driven but many are in fact only capable of producing low forces. Here, the authors developed high speed and high force hydrogel actuators capable of camouflage optically and sonically with low fatigue over multiple cycles.

    • Hyunwoo Yuk
    • , Shaoting Lin
    •  & Xuanhe Zhao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photonic lanterns are made by merging several single-mode cores into one multimode core. Here, the authors show this type of structure can both perform wavelength-to-time mapping of multimode states of light and couple such light to an array of single-photon avalanche detectors.

    • Harikumar K Chandrasekharan
    • , Frauke Izdebski
    •  & Robert R. Thomson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Telephone cord blisters constitute a well-known example of patterns generated following buckling in thin films. Here the authors develop an analytical approach that can model the sectional height profiles along the blisters that they measure experimentally and simulate numerically.

    • Yong Ni
    • , Senjiang Yu
    •  & Linghui He

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Brain machine interfaces (BMI) enable sensorimotor control of movement yet the parameters that may affect these pathways are not known. Here the authors show systematically that increasing the rate of control from brain as well as feedback rates to the subject results in better performance on a BMI task in monkeys.

    • Maryam M. Shanechi
    • , Amy L. Orsborn
    •  & Jose M. Carmena

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lithium-based batteries employing silicon anodes and sulfur cathodes are promising for combining low cost and high capacity, but have been limited in terms of cycling stability. Here authors present cycling and characterization data supporting beneficial synergies between a selenium disulfide cathode and a silicon anode.

    • KwangSup Eom
    • , Jung Tae Lee
    •  & Thomas F. Fuller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Shaping ceramics into complex forms is a formidable goal. Here, the authors present an approach to self-shaping ceramics, inspired by self-folding processes in plants, in which the ceramic microstructure is embedded with aligned platelets that control the orientation of heat-induced shrinkage.

    • Fabio L. Bargardi
    • , Hortense Le Ferrand
    •  & André R. Studart

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Twin transmission across grain boundaries has important influence on deformation and fracture in hexagonal close-packed metals. Here, experimental and computational statistical analyses show that whether twins cross grain boundaries depends not only on crystal misorientation but also strongly on anisotropy in crystallographic slip.

    • M. Arul Kumar
    • , I. J. Beyerlein
    •  & C. N. Tomé

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carbon nanotube yarns with high loadings of pseudocapacitive material are desirable, e.g., for emerging wearable technologies. Here authors make biscrolled yarns with high loadings of MnO2nanoparticles confined in carbon nanotube galleries, demonstrating very high linear and areal capacitances.

    • Changsoon Choi
    • , Kang Min Kim
    •  & Seon Jeong Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The development of organic electronics calls for low-cost printing techniques that can prepare high quality, large-area organic single crystals. Here, Rigaset al. achieve this goal by combining spray printing and antisolvent crystallization and test the method on various materials and substrates.

    • Grigorios-Panagiotis Rigas
    • , Marcia M. Payne
    •  & Maxim Shkunov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Controlling elastic waves in medium is essential to many applications in mechanical to earthquake engineering. Ma et al. demonstrate selective suppression of different vibrational modes in a three-dimensional rod-shape structure, which shows fluid-like elasticity with only longitudinal waves propagating.

    • Guancong Ma
    • , Caixing Fu
    •  & Ping Sheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    By forming heterostructures of different layered two-dimensional materials, functional spintronic devices may be built by exploiting the materials’ different spin-orbit coupling and spin transport properties. Here, the authors demonstrate a spin switch in a gated structure of graphene and MoS2.

    • Wenjing Yan
    • , Oihana Txoperena
    •  & Fèlix Casanova

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electronic devices based on negative differential resistance hold promise for multi-valued logic applications. Here, the authors implement such functionalities using an atomically thin phosphorene/rhenium disulfide van der Waals heterostructure, and further demonstrate the implementation of a ternary inverter.

    • Jaewoo Shim
    • , Seyong Oh
    •  & Jin-Hong Park

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Most microelectronic devices today exploit the electronic properties of semiconductors. Here, the authors demonstrate a microelectronic device for free-space electrons by using the enhanced fields in a microstructured metal surface to induce effective photoemission.

    • Ebrahim Forati
    • , Tyler J. Dill
    •  & Dan Sievenpiper

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Scalable quantum information processing requires controllable high-coherence qubits. Here, the authors present superconducting flux qubits with broad frequency tunability, strong anharmonicity and high reproducibility, identifying photon shot noise as the main source of dephasing for further improvements.

    • Fei Yan
    • , Simon Gustavsson
    •  & William D. Oliver

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The wettability properties of graphene hold promise for the realisation of flow control devices. Here, the authors demonstrate that the degree of water penetration through a nickel mesh coated with graphene can be controlled electrically, enabling dynamic locomotion of water droplets.

    • Rassoul Tabassian
    • , Jung-Hwan Oh
    •  & Il-Kwon Oh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stem cell therapy of myocardial infarction is hampered by poor survival of injected cells. Here the authors develop injectable aggregates of stem cells differentiated to an early cardiac stage and encapsulated in a biodegradable micromatrix, and show their enhanced therapeutic efficacy in a heart infarction mouse model.

    • Shuting Zhao
    • , Zhaobin Xu
    •  & Xiaoming He

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Given the scarcity and cost of platinum, it is important to develop sustainable processes for its recycling. Here, the authors report the dissolution of metallic platinum using reductive and oxidative gases to repetitively change its surface oxidation state, in the absence of an external electric current.

    • Nejc Hodnik
    • , Claudio Baldizzone
    •  & Karl J. J. Mayrhofer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Vapour-deposited glasses show high stability compared to that of aged glasses, but a structural understanding remains elusive. Here, Reid et al. find that vapour deposited and liquid-cooled glasses show identical structures, suggesting these two classes of films lie on the same path to equilibrium.

    • Daniel R. Reid
    • , Ivan Lyubimov
    •  & Juan J. de Pablo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Large-scale screens on whole animals could facilitate drug discovery, but are technically challenging. Here, Mondal et al. develop a microfluidic chip combined with an automated imaging platform that enables high-throughput, high-resolution screening of Caenorhabditis elegansdisease models.

    • Sudip Mondal
    • , Evan Hegarty
    •  & Adela Ben-Yakar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Analysis of bacteria and their response to antibiotics in real time is challenging. Here the authors report a microcantilever based system that can detect and discriminate between bacteria species and, due to the ability to discriminate between alive and dead samples, measure response to antibiotics.

    • Hashem Etayash
    • , M. F. Khan
    •  & Thomas Thundat

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Molecular electronics holds promise to overcome scaling limits of conventional technologies, but is currently limited to low frequency operation. Here, Trasobares et al. show radio frequencies of up to 17.8 GHz in a molecular diode based on ferrocenyl undecanethiol self-assembled monolayers on gold nanodots.

    • J. Trasobares
    • , D. Vuillaume
    •  & N. Clément

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Zeolite crystal with porous structure is predicted to be a good membrane material for water purification, but experiments show water uptake orders of magnitude smaller than the theory. Here, Fasano et al. attribute this disagreement to the additional diffusion resistance induced by surface defects.

    • Matteo Fasano
    • , Thomas Humplik
    •  & Pietro Asinari

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thermal management is important for designing bio-nano interfaces for biosensing and thermotherapic applications. Here the authors perform simulations showing that nm-thick water layers between graphene and cell membranes display layered ordering, promoting interfacial thermal coupling and thermal dissipation.

    • Yanlei Wang
    • , Zhao Qin
    •  & Zhiping Xu

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