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  • 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.

    • Yazhou Wang
    • Shofarul Wustoni
    • Sahika Inal
    Review Article
  • 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.

    • Jingshan S. Du
    • Yuna Bae
    • James J. De Yoreo
    Review Article
  • Single-atom catalysts benefit from metal–support interactions that enable the support to be directly involved in the reaction, accelerating specific mechanistic steps to obtain unique electrocatalytic properties. This Review discusses state-of-the-art techniques for synthesizing active co-catalytic single-atom structures and explores the design strategies that enhance their catalytic performance.

    • Lucy Gloag
    • Samuel V. Somerville
    • Richard D. Tilley
    Review Article
  • Immunotherapy represents an important advance in cancer treatment, yet faces challenges owing to lack of precise control, leading to systemic effects and suboptimal results for patients. This Review explores how responsive biomaterials can enhance cancer immunotherapies by responding to various internal and external stimuli to regulate the delivery and behaviour of therapeutic agents, thereby improving efficacy and reducing toxicity in treatment methods such as cancer vaccines, T cell-based therapies and sustained delivery systems.

    • Lulu Xue
    • Ajay S. Thatte
    • Michael J. Mitchell
    Review Article
  • Mucosal vaccines are critical in the fight against mucosal pathogens because they enable the immune system to directly neutralize these pathogens at their primary site of entry. This Review examines the role of material design in addressing the challenges associated with mucosal vaccine delivery.

    • Behnaz Eshaghi
    • Alex Schudel
    • Ana Jaklenec
    Review Article
  • Ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs), with their exceptionally high melting points and outstanding thermomechanical behaviour, are critical materials for extreme environment technologies. This Review establishes the key UHTC composition–synthesis–property relations and discusses the design of UHTCs for application in extreme environments.

    • Brian C. Wyatt
    • Srinivasa Kartik Nemani
    • Babak Anasori
    Review Article
  • Advances in photoactive-layer materials have contributed to the increase in the performance of organic solar cells. This Review summarizes the types of materials used in the photoactive layer of solution-processed organic solar cells, discusses the advantages and disadvantages of combinations of different materials and considers molecular design strategies for future development.

    • Jicheng Yi
    • Guangye Zhang
    • He Yan
    Review Article
  • Broken symmetries at the nanoscale can greatly modify the emergent nanophotonic responses enabled by phonon polaritons. This Review discusses how lowering the degree of symmetry in natural and artificial materials gives rise to a wide spectrum of low-loss, directional, confined light–matter quasiparticles.

    • Emanuele Galiffi
    • Giulia Carini
    • Andrea Alù
    Review Article
  • Incorporating fluorine into battery components can improve the energy density, safety and cycling stability of rechargeable batteries. This Review explores the broad use of fluorinated compounds in battery design, examines the relationship between their chemical structure and battery performance and discusses the challenges and opportunities of fluorinated batteries within the present regulatory framework.

    • Yiqing Wang
    • Zhenzhen Wu
    • Cheng Zhang
    Review Article
  • Vapour-phase deposition holds promise for synthesizing two-dimensional layered chalcogenides that are intriguing for fundamental research and emerging technological applications. This Review summarizes the advancements and future opportunities for translating this synthesis approach from laboratory to manufacturing scale.

    • Tianyi Zhang
    • Jiangtao Wang
    • Jing Kong
    Review Article
  • Methylammonium-free wide-bandgap metal halide perovskites are attractive for tandem photovoltaics but routinely perform worse than their methylammonium-containing counterparts. This Review discusses the factors contributing to their constrained performance, progress made in these tandem devices and promising strategies for their continued development.

    • Alexandra J. Ramadan
    • Robert D. J. Oliver
    • Henry J. Snaith
    Review Article
  • Electrons in strongly interacting materials can flow collectively, exhibiting hydrodynamic phenomena such as viscous flow. This Review highlights recent experimental advances, including high-quality materials growth, that have enabled these observations and surveys the spatially resolved theoretical frameworks necessary to interpret and predict these phenomena.

    • Georgios Varnavides
    • Amir Yacoby
    • Prineha Narang
    Review Article
  • Owing to their suitable and tunable optoelectronic properties, regulation-compliant InP-based colloidal quantum dots have attracted considerable academic and industrial interest for visible and near-infrared photonics. This Review covers the fundamentals, the design, the fabrication and the many applications of this class of materials, highlighting current challenges and future prospects.

    • Guilherme Almeida
    • Reinout F. Ubbink
    • Arjan J. Houtepen
    Review Article
  • Lightwave electronics could enable the control of interactions in quantum materials and provide access to the quantum phases and quantum information of condensed-matter systems. This Review discusses the fundamental concepts of lightwave electronics and outlines key advances and potential applications.

    • Markus Borsch
    • Manuel Meierhofer
    • Mackillo Kira
    Review Article
  • In situ self-assembly is advantageous for cancer therapy and imaging because of the efficient deep-tumour targeting, enhanced blood circulation and negligible drug resistance of the resulting nanomedicines. This Review discusses extracellular and intracellular in situ self-assembly based on endogenous and exogenous stimuli for cancer therapy and imaging applications.

    • Jaewon Kim
    • Sungkyu Lee
    • Jong Seung Kim
    Review Article
  • Two-dimensional materials can enable a new generation of flexible and printed electronics suitable for light-weight, low-power, sustainable and cost-effective field-effect transistors. This Review surveys solution-processed transistors based on 2D materials, discussing their performance, limitations and future perspectives.

    • Silvia Conti
    • Gabriele Calabrese
    • Gianluca Fiori
    Review Article
  • Combining poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) with 3D-printing techniques enables the customization of compliant conductive materials for soft robotics, towards the goal of merging humans and robots. This Review discusses the fundamentals of 3D-printed PEDOT:PSS for soft robotics, from printable ink design and evaluation to printing strategies and promising soft robotic systems.

    • Jinhao Li
    • Jie Cao
    • Guoying Gu
    Review Article
  • UV photodetectors based on low-dimensional wide-bandgap semiconductors offer wearable, multidimensional and intelligent functions in the scenarios of imaging, communication, multispectral and/or weak light detection and flexible electronics. This Review focuses on the material design, dimensionality engineering and device engineering of wide-bandgap semiconductors in diversified UV applications.

    • Ziqing Li
    • Tingting Yan
    • Xiaosheng Fang
    Review Article
  • Although perovskite solar cells now have competitive efficiencies compared with silicon solar cells, their low stability has hindered their commercial application thus far. This Review summarizes the tremendous improvements made over the past decade and offer a perspective on how to reach >25-year stable perovskite solar cells.

    • Hongwei Zhu
    • Sam Teale
    • Osman M. Bakr
    Review Article