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The family of AV3Sb5 kagome superconductors provides a fascinating platform for the investigation of the interplay between superconductivity and charge-density wave order. This Review discusses the properties of the anomalous charge-density wave and superconducting states observed in these materials and surveys future directions in the study of these and related kagome metals.
Hydrogels are promising in various fields, but improving their mechanical properties is critical for certain applications. This Review comprehensively explores design principles to construct hydrogels with superior mechanical strength, toughness and fatigue resistance, and discusses self-growing and self-reinforced hydrogels.
Nonlinear optical interactions can be substantially enhanced by the wavelength-scale confinement in integrated photonics, providing transformative capabilities for controlling, enhancing and manipulating material nonlinearities in miniaturized platforms. In this Review, we outline the design principles that harness the potential of nonlinear optical materials on integrated platforms and their utility in applications including broadband frequency conversion, frequency-comb generation, quantum light sources and nonlinear optical quantum logic gates.
Harvesting freshwater from the air using water sorption materials is an innovative strategy to address water scarcity. This Review offers a multiscale perspective to design the next generation of sorption-based atmospheric water harvesting technology by bridging materials innovations to device realization and provides practical guidelines to understand its real-world impact.
Moiré materials are a versatile and tunable platform that offers a wide variety of lattice constants, energy scales and symmetries, leading to a rich interplay of electron correlations and topology. This Review summarizes recent breakthroughs in topological and Berry physics in moiré materials.
Solid-state lithium metal batteries have the potential to meet energy density and safety requirements that current commercial Li-ion batteries cannot. Given their solid-state components, these batteries are subject to — and strongly affected by — external pressure during their manufacturing and operation. This Review examines the relationship between external pressure and electrochemical behaviour in these batteries.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.