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India’s commitment to its ambitious technology goals brings a unique opportunity for the materials science community in the country to achieve synergy, focus, large-scale employment and global impact. However, scientists need to engage more spontaneously in goal-oriented collaborations along with stakeholders in industry and government.
As new materials and manufacturing techniques are discovered, their benefits transform every branch of science and engineering. In spacecraft propulsion, a new generation of ion engines could provide unprecedented performance and flexibility in space mission design.
High-entropy materials (HEMs) are characterized by their high configurational entropy, providing unique property-tuning capabilities for a variety of applications. This Perspective discusses the potential of HEMs for applications in energy storage, energy conversion and electronics.
Cost and performance analysis, if applied properly, can guide the research of new energy storage materials. In three case studies on sodium-ion batteries, this Perspective illustrates how to implement this type of analysis at the battery material discovery phase to identify the most promising active materials and treatments.
Nanoparticles (NPs) administered in the human body will undergo rapid surface modification upon contact with biological fluids driven by their interfacial interaction with a diverse range of biomolecules. Such spontaneous self-assembly and adsorption of proteins and other biomolecules onto the NP surface constitute what is commonly known as the protein or biomolecule corona. This surface biotransformation of the NPs modulates their biological interactions and impact on physiological systems and can influence their overall pharmacological profile. Here, we comment on how the initially considered ‘nuisance’ of the in vivo corona formation can now be considered a nanoparticle engineering tool for biomedical use, such as in endogenous tissue targeting, personalized biomarker discovery and immunomodulation.
The organic electrochemical transistor (OECT), with its organic mixed ionic–electronic conductor (OMIEC) channel, serves as an amplifying transducer of biological signals. This Review highlights OMIEC design milestones and illustrates how incorporating specific properties into OMIECs can extend OECT applications beyond biosensing.
Solar photovoltaics has tremendous potential to address current gaps in electricity access for resource-challenged settings, such as sub-Saharan Africa. However, a rapid surge in installations and future growth will lead to an increase in waste from panels and batteries, which needs to be tackled urgently. Innovative technical solutions and improved policies and standards are required to address end-of-life challenges for solar photovoltaics in sub-Saharan Africa.
Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future, the latest book by Ed Conway, explores the materials that underline our modern civilization, discussing their supply and manufacturing, but also history and innovators.
Flat-band materials such as kagome and moiré lattices and strongly correlated electron systems including heavy-fermion compounds exhibit strikingly similar phenomena of topology and strong correlations. This Perspective article discusses Kondo physics as the underlying theme and a route to a unified understanding.
Taking inspiration from the success of organic light-emitting diodes (LEDs), vapour deposition holds promises for bringing perovskite LEDs closer to commercialization. This Perspective article highlights the main bottlenecks and challenges towards high-efficiency vapour-deposited perovskite LEDs, as well as the prospects on the route towards commercial displays.
Current interest in furthering space exploration is undoubtedly relevant to materials science research. However, as we stand on the brink of a revolution, it is imperative to establish robust frameworks to foster sustainable growth. In this Viewpoint, experts in space policy, environmental stewardship and ethics reflect on issues from space debris management to international collaboration and exploitation of extraterrestrial resources.
Microscale robots have unique advantages for biomedical and environmental applications. This Review discusses materials considerations to enable the propulsion and motion control of these microrobots, as well as their fabrication and potential applications.
For more than two decades, the crystallization of various (bio)molecules and materials have been found to be non-classical and to generate unique crystal structures and morphologies. This Review discusses the non-classical crystallization pathways discovered in soft and organic materials and identifies challenges and opportunities in understanding, designing and synthesizing such structures.
Peptides and nucleic acids inspired the creation of synthetic analogues that fold and assemble on demand. By contrast, programmable glycan architectures remain mostly unexplored. In this Perspective, the authors propose that advances in synthesis and analysis could fuel the use of well-defined glycans in materials science and supramolecular chemistry.
Moisture-sorption-based energy harvesting (MSEH) is a promising strategy for obtaining heat, cold and electricity from ubiquitous moisture anywhere and anytime. This Perspective article discusses the thermodynamic characteristics of MSEH, evaluates global energy production potential and highlights challenges and strategies for realizing high-energy-productivity MSEH.
Multijunction solar cells can overcome the fundamental efficiency limits of single-junction devices. This Perspective article highlights tandem solar cells based on a wide-gap perovskite and a narrow-gap organic subcell, which could achieve efficiencies beyond 30% and can be produced without large carbon emissions.
Materialism, a podcast exploring the past, present and future of materials science, is turning five. Co-founders and co-hosts Taylor Sparks (a professor at the University of Utah) and Andrew Falkowski (a PhD student in Sparks’ group) discuss how they use storytelling to create compelling episodes and share their journey and lessons learned.