Physical sciences articles within Nature Nanotechnology

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  • News & Views |

    The emission wavelengths of semiconductor lasers based on group-IV materials can be efficiently reconfigured by using strained nanomechanical resonators.

    • Fabio Pezzoli

  • Article |

    Ex vivo engineering of T cells for adoptive T-cell therapy without pre-activation is challenging and hinders therapeutic efficacy. Here, using nanowires, the delivery of microRNAs to primary naïve mouse and human CD8+ T cells without pre-activation for immune protection against pathogens is demonstrated.

    • Kristel J. Yee Mon
    • , Sungwoong Kim
    •  & Ankur Singh

  • Article |

    Toroidic phases and their phase transitions are notoriously hard to study in natural materials. Now, a direct-kagome spin ice provides access to two low-temperature toroidal phases, ferrotoroidicity and paratoroidicity, as well as to toroidic phase transitions.

    • Wen-Cheng Yue
    • , Zixiong Yuan
    •  & Yong-Lei Wang

  • Article |

    Biobased materials are of interest for many applications. Here the authors report insect-derived peptides that self-assemble into hollow nanocapsules through a gradient-driven, single-step, solvent exchange process, enabling the encapsulation of diverse cargoes with potential for drug delivery applications.

    • Haopeng Li
    • , Xuliang Qian
    •  & Jing Yu

  • Article |

    Plasmonic tunnel junctions integrated with a monolayer semiconductor are found to emit photons with energies exceeding the input electrical potential. This peculiar phenomenon is ascribed to being triggered by inelastic electron tunnelling dipoles inducing optically forbidden transitions in the carrier injection electrode.

    • Zhe Wang
    • , Vijith Kalathingal
    •  & Goki Eda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Engineering the tunability of protein assembly in response to pH changes within a narrow range is challenging. Here the authors report the de novo computational design of pH-responsive protein filaments that exhibit rapid, precise, tunable and reversible assembly and disassembly triggered by small pH changes.

    • Hao Shen
    • , Eric M. Lynch
    •  & David Baker

  • Research Briefing |

    How can light be efficiently manipulated below the single-pixel level? An answer is now provided using near-field interactions for nanopillars in a metasurface — phase gradients in the gaps between the nanopillars constitute a new degree of freedom that enables efficient wavefront control at the nanoscale.

  • Article |

    Understanding how cells process nanoparticles is crucial to improve nanomedicine efficacy. Here a genome-wide screening is used to discover proteins that are involved in silica nanoparticle accumulation by cells and shows that different apolipoprotein receptors and proteoglycans mediate their internalization.

    • Daphne Montizaan
    • , Roberta Bartucci
    •  & Anna Salvati

  • Article |

    The characterization and tuning of free radicals at the single molecule level is a challenging endeavour. Here electrical conductance measurements of a single molecule sandwiched between nanogapped graphene electrodes via covalent amide bonds reveal the conversion between closed-shell and open-shell form with temperature, electric and magnetic field in real time.

    • Caiyao Yang
    • , Zhongxin Chen
    •  & Xuefeng Guo

  • Research Briefing |

    A process that leverages capillary interactions between oligomers in an elastomeric polydimethylsiloxane substrate and deposited Ga enables the formation of Ga nanodroplets with nanoscale gaps in a single step. Gap-plasmon resonances excited within the nanogaps give rise to structural colours that can be tuned by changing the oligomer content in the substrate or by mechanical stretching.

  • Research Briefing |

    By confining and concentrating light in a nanometric volume at the apex of a metallic tip, sub-molecule-scale control of a basic photochemical reaction — phototautomerization — is now shown to be possible. Applicable to other photo-induced reactions, this technique signals a new strategy for the synthesis of complex molecules on surfaces.

  • Article |

    Weak laser light confined at the apex of a scanning tunnelling microscope tip can drive the tautomerization of a free-base phthalocyanine with atomic-scale precision. The combination of tip-enhanced photoluminescence spectroscopy and hyperspectral mapping paired with theoretical modelling then unravel an excited-state mediated reaction.

    • Anna Rosławska
    • , Katharina Kaiser
    •  & Guillaume Schull

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors combined and synchronized single-cell nanoindentation, electrophysiology and functional fluorescence imaging to evaluate the responses of neuronal networks to mechanical stimuli with piconewton force sensitivity and nanometre precision, enabling the exploration of nanomechanobiology and manipulation of neuronal systems.

    • Krishna Chaitanya Kasuba
    • , Alessio Paolo Buccino
    •  & Daniel J. Müller

  • Article |

    Manufacturing complexities, low yield and stability issues have hampered the clinical translation and scaling-up of immunoliposomes to meet the needs of pharmaceutical-grade products. The authors propose a one-step method of incorporating chimeric nanobodies tagged to hydrophobic linkers into liposomes, allowing targeted delivery of small-molecule anti-cancer drugs to tumours.

    • Md. Mofizur Rahman
    • , Jing Wang
    •  & Yuan Wan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In regenerative medicine, stem-cell-derived extracellular vesicles are emerging as cell-free nanotherapeutics. Here, the authors show that coating these nanovesicles with blood proteins such as albumin improves their uptake by liver cells, offering a better treatment strategy for liver diseases.

    • Revadee Liam-Or
    • , Farid N. Faruqu
    •  & Khuloud T. Al-Jamal

  • Article |

    Here the authors present a non-FRET DNA-templated silver nanocluster probe that exhibits a distinct colour switch from green to red upon nuclease digestion, visible under UV excitation, offering a low-cost, effective alternative to fluorescent reporters for detecting nuclease activities.

    • Soonwoo Hong
    • , Jada N. Walker
    •  & Hsin-Chih Yeh

  • Article |

    Distinguishing proteoforms and post-translational modifications has remained a challenge. Here the authors explore single-molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer to probe amino acids via DNA exchange and map the location of individual amino acids and post-translational modifications within single full-length protein molecules.

    • Mike Filius
    • , Raman van Wee
    •  & Chirlmin Joo

  • Comment |

    Scientists encounter pressure to validate their research work, leading to varied benchmarks and methods for performance assessment in the broad energy research field. Interlaboratory studies help highlight discrepancies in reported figures of merit, underscoring the need for standardized protocols, transparent reporting, and detailed analysis for fair comparisons. Here, we discuss this topic, focusing on battery materials.

    • Nella M. Vargas-Barbosa

  • Research Briefing |

    An encodable DNA clutch with the ability to recognize microenvironmental molecular inputs intelligently complements the remote control of a 200-nm sized magnetic nanomachine. This nanomachine interacts with biological machinery in vitro when the encoded clutch selectively engages the engine with the rotor while external magnetic fields power the rotation.

  • Research Briefing |

    A robust initialization protocol has been demonstrated for a four-qubit nuclear spin register in silicon. The protocol, driven electrically through electric-dipole spin resonance, enables high-fidelity qubit control and hence a route to a register-based quantum computer that exploits the exceptional coherence properties of atom qubits in silicon.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An electric dipole spin resonance protocol making use of hyperfine interaction enacts high-fidelity initialization of a four-qubit nuclear spin register in silicon. This protocol allows for high-fidelity qubit control and a path towards a register-based quantum computer using the exceptional coherence properties of donors in silicon.

    • J. Reiner
    • , Y. Chung
    •  & M. Y. Simmons

  • Article |

    The nanospace confinement of a magnetic nanoparticle within a porous cage, coupled with an encodable DNA clutch interface, enables a remotely powered and controlled rotary nanomotor that is autoresponsive to its microenvironment.

    • Mouhong Lin
    • , Jung-uk Lee
    •  & Jinwoo Cheon

  • News & Views |

    An intelligent meta-imager can perform multi-channel convolutions to accelerate machine vision for incoherent light.

    • Zheng Huang
    •  & Hongwei Chen

  • Comment |

    The legal definition of a nanomaterial differs around the world, meaning that the same material may be classified as a nanomaterial, or not, depending on the country where it is classified. The first steps towards converging on an international definition are to recognize the differences between existing nanomaterial definitions and to agree on particle counting methods. Meanwhile, we propose a naming convention that indicates the key criteria of a specific definition of a nanomaterial.

    • Kirsten Rasmussen
    • , Juan Riego Sintes
    •  & Hubert Rauscher

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