Nanoscience and technology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mask-free multi-photon lithography allows the straightforward fabrication of nanostructures, but high precision and good resolution can be challenging to achieve. Here, the authors report a combination of photo-inhibition and chemical quenchers for improved lithography performance.

    • Lingling Guan
    • , Chun Cao
    •  & Xu Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors present Nernst measurements on a 2D film of amorphous MoxGe1−x, which shows a magnetic-field-induced superconductor-metal-insulator transition. The intermediate metal phase is known as the “anomalous metal” (AM) state. The authors conclude that the AM state originates from broadening of the superconductor-insulator transition.

    • Koichiro Ienaga
    • , Yutaka Tamoto
    •  & Satoshi Okuma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biocompatible afterglow materials have potential in imaging applications, but are challenging to prepare. Here the authors report the development of carbon nanodots with near-infrared afterglow, and demonstrate their use in imaging for tumour resection.

    • Guang-Song Zheng
    • , Cheng-Long Shen
    •  & Chong-Xin Shan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polaritons in 2D materials offer the possibility to confine and manipulate light in the terahertz (THz) range. Here, the authors report the observation of THz elliptic plasmon polaritons in 2D black phosphorus, showing deep subwavelength light confinement and anisotropic polariton propagation.

    • Eva A. A. Pogna
    • , Valentino Pistore
    •  & Miriam S. Vitiello

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The detrimental effects of intragrain impurity nanoclusters on the efficiency and stability of perovskite solar cells remain unexplored. Here, the authors study the intragrain impurity annihilation by in situ scanning transmission electron microscopy and adopt a laser stimulus to heal such impurity.

    • Songhua Cai
    • , Zhipeng Li
    •  & Yuanyuan Zhou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Contractile rings are formed from cytoskeletal filaments, specific crosslinkers and motor proteins during cell division. Here, authors form micron-scale contractile DNA rings from DNA nanotubes and synthetic crosslinkers, with both simulations and experiments showing ring contraction without motor proteins, offering a potential first step towards synthetic cell division machinery.

    • Maja Illig
    • , Kevin Jahnke
    •  & Kerstin Göpfrich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this work, the authors demonstrate a 2D memristor with high switching speeds of 120 ps and study its dynamic response with 3 ns short voltage pulses using statistical analysis, simulation, and modeling.

    • S. S. Teja Nibhanupudi
    • , Anupam Roy
    •  & Sanjay K. Banerjee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Substrate patterning offers additional degrees of freedom to engineer the structure and function of a semiconductor device. Here, fully-enclosed germanium cavities, with size and position tunable through the initial mask pattern, can be created through an unexpected self-assembly process.

    • Yiwen Zhang
    • , Baoming Wang
    •  & Rui-Tao Wen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Area selective atomic layer deposition (AS-ALD) has been recently proposed as a controlled growth method, but the patterning resolution and selectivity require improvements. Here, the authors report a superlattice-based AS-ALD method to deposit various materials onto 2D MoS2-MoSe2 lateral superlattices, with a minimum half-pitch size of ~ 10 nm.

    • Jeongwon Park
    • , Seung Jae Kwak
    •  & Kibum Kang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A spin torque nano-oscillator consists of a free magnetic layer and a reference magnetic layer. Many works have examined the behaviour of droplet solitons in the free magnetic layer. Here, Jiang et al. extend this to pair of droplet solitons, with one in the free layer and one in the reference layer.

    • S. Jiang
    • , S. Chung
    •  & J. Åkerman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fabricating flexible transparent electrodes with robust operational stability alongside electrical and mechanical properties is challenging. Here, Kim et al. develop ultrathin flexible transparent electrodes using in-situ solution-processing and unveil interface dynamics of the integrated tri-system.

    • John Jinwook Kim
    • , Kojima Shuji
    •  & Wallace C. H. Choy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cholesterol (Chol) transfer from lipid bilayer jeopardizes membrane stability and causes premature payload leakage, yielding suboptimal efficacy. Here, the authors report a Chol-modified sphingomyelin (SM) bilayer via covalently conjugating Chol to SM, which retains Chol condensing ability and improves pharmacokinetics and therapeutic delivery of various drugs in diverse disease animal models.

    • Zhiren Wang
    • , Wenpan Li
    •  & Jianqin Lu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artificial sensory systems are often limited in structure and functionality. Here, Jiang et al. report a neuromorphic antennal sensory system that achieves spatiotemporal perception of vibrotactile and magnetic stimuli, showcasing biomimetic perceptual intelligence.

    • Chengpeng Jiang
    • , Honghuan Xu
    •  & Wentao Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Direct modulation of protein by artificial catalysts as enzyme mimetics remains hindered by the lack of highly efficient catalytic centers. Here, the authors present the development of artificial protein modulators (APROMs) with protein phosphatase-like characteristics, catalytically reprogram the biological function of α-synuclein.

    • Peihua Lin
    • , Bo Zhang
    •  & Daishun Ling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Previous research reported enhanced emission from spin defects in hBN by coupling to optical resonators; however, this approach has limited scalability. Here the authors use a monolithic metasurface featuring quasi bound states fabricated from hBN to enhance photoemission and optical spin-readout efficiency of defects in the same material.

    • Luca Sortino
    • , Angus Gale
    •  & Andreas Tittl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Molecules arranged in close proximity to a surface form molecular layers, exhibiting distinct properties. However, the creation of these layers is challenging. Here, the authors present a technique for generating molecular layers through crystallization induced by gas blowing onto a surface.

    • Jincheng Tong
    • , Nathan de Bruyn
    •  & Cinzia Casiraghi

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Memristors hold promise for massively-parallel computing at low power. Aguirre et al. provide a comprehensive protocol of the materials and methods for designing memristive artificial neural networks with the detailed working principles of each building block and the tools for performance evaluation.

    • Fernando Aguirre
    • , Abu Sebastian
    •  & Mario Lanza

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Discovery of 2D materials with useful electronic properties is challenging. Here, the authors use DFT to design a stable semiconducting 2D carbon allotrope for optoelectronic applications that has light charge carriers and unusual secondary bandgap.

    • Zhenzhe Zhang
    • , Hanh D. M. Pham
    •  & Rustam Z. Khaliullin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The nature of the molecule-metal interface is crucial for many technological applications. Here, the authors show that the photostability of the material can be sensitive to room light when coated with a single molecular layer, with implications for devices and processes.

    • Chenyang Guo
    • , Philip Benzie
    •  & Jeremy J. Baumberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Achieving spatiotemporal control of photochromic upconversion from a single lanthanide emitter remains challenging. Here, the authors present a conceptual model enabling such control of Er3+ photochromic upconversion via interfacial energy transfer in a core-shell nanostructure.

    • Long Yan
    • , Jinshu Huang
    •  & Bo Zhou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artificial biomolecular condensates are valuable tools to study the design principles of phase separation. Here, the authors demonstrate and characterize a model system of artificial DNA condensates whose kinetic formation and dissolution depends on DNA inputs that activate or deactivate the phase separating DNA subunits.

    • Siddharth Agarwal
    • , Dino Osmanovic
    •  & Elisa Franco

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Via Raman and infrared spectroscopy measurements, X. Zan et al. find that rhombohedral ABC trilayer graphene has stronger electron/infrared-phonon coupling than Bernal ABA trilayer graphene.

    • Xiaozhou Zan
    • , Xiangdong Guo
    •  & Guangyu Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite having all the ingredients required for the formation of two-dimensional ferromagnetism, achieving such a magnetic state in atomically thin metal-organic coordination networks has proved to be a persistent challenge. Here, Lobo-Checa et al demonstrate 2Dferromagnetism in a self-assembled network, exhibiting coercive fields over 2 Tesla and a Curie temperature of 35K.

    • Jorge Lobo-Checa
    • , Leyre Hernández-López
    •  & Fernando Bartolomé

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exciton transport in 2D Ruddlesden−Popper perovskite plays a key role for their optoelectronic performance. Here, authors significantly enhance free exciton mobilities in exfoliated thin flakes by anchoring butyl ammonium cation with polymethyl methacrylate, which also improves lattice rigidity.

    • Yiyang Gong
    • , Shuai Yue
    •  & Xinfeng Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasma membrane lysis is an effective anticancer strategy that mostly relies on soluble molecular membranolytic agents, while nanomaterial-based membranolytic agents have been unexplored. Herein, the authors report a nano- and molecular-scale multi-patterning strategy for fabricating mesoporous membranolytic nanoperforators with an intrinsic membranolytic activity.

    • Yannan Yang
    • , Shiwei Chen
    •  & Chengzhong Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    2D MoS2 is being intensively investigated as a promising candidate to extend the downscaling of electronic devices. Here, the authors report a buffer-layer-control method for the growth of wafer-scale single-crystalline MoS2 monolayers on industry-compatible sapphire substrates with competitive optical and electronic properties.

    • Lu Li
    • , Qinqin Wang
    •  & Guangyu Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spin waves in magnetic nanosystems offer a potential platform for wave-based signal processing and computing, with a variety of advantages compared to optical approaches. Herein, the authors demonstrate resonant phase matched generation of second harmonic spin waves, enabling the generation of short wavelength spin waves that are otherwise difficult to directly excite.

    • K. O. Nikolaev
    • , S. R. Lake
    •  & V. E. Demidov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The development of RNA technologies demands accurate assessment of transcript size and heterogeneity. Here, authors report a nanopore-based approach to study full-length RNA transcripts at the single-molecule level, identify premature transcription termination and study rolling-circle transcription.

    • Gerardo Patiño-Guillén
    • , Jovan Pešović
    •  & Ulrich Felix Keyser

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Triggering the PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint is an attractive therapeutic approach in inflammatory bowel disease, and PD-L1, conjugated to the Fc part of an immunoglobulin (PD-L1-Fc) has been shown to be effective in mouse models. Here authors show that fusing to reactive oxygen species (ROS)-responsive nanoparticles improves effect of PD-L1-Fc due to targeting to inflammation sites, while systemic toxicity is reduced.

    • Xudong Tang
    • , Yangyang Shang
    •  & Lei Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exploring the miniaturization of imaging systems, researchers use inverse-design for broadband meta-optics in the LWIR spectrum. Here, authors achieve a six-fold Strehl ratio improvement in image quality over conventional metalenses using a novel design and computational techniques.

    • Luocheng Huang
    • , Zheyi Han
    •  & Arka Majumdar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The efficiency of upconversion electroluminescence remains very low for single-molecule emitters. Here, the authors report over one order of magnitude improvement in the emission efficiency via engineering energy-level alignments for triplet relayed upconversion involving only carrier injection.

    • Yang Luo
    • , Fan-Fang Kong
    •  & Zhen-Chao Dong

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