Volume 5 Issue 7, July 2020

An article in Physical Review Letters reports that twisted bilayers of WSe₂ host interlayer excitons with a high degree of valley polarization and long lifetimes.

An article in Nature reports the 3D printing of a metallic alloy that exploits the thermic cycling during the printing process to enable local control of the microstructure of the printed objects.

Owing to their layered structure, the properties of 2D perovskites can be controlled by tuning their thickness. This Review surveys how fine-tuning the thickness of 2D perovskites from the sub-micrometre to the molecularly thin regime helps to optimize their electrical and optical properties for use in different applications.

Unrecycled post-consumer plastic waste is an enormous, growing problem. Chemical recycling to monomer (CRM) delivers recycled material without degradation in properties. This Review assesses the viability of commercial polymer CRM, the flourishing of CRM with new polymers and opportunities for the field.

Electrochemical processes enable energy-efficient desalination of water and the separation and recovery of elements. In this Review, we discuss the mechanisms and materials of this emerging generation of water-remediation technology.

Matrigel is widely used for cell culture. However, its ill-defined composition, batch-to-batch variability and animal-derived nature lead to experimental uncertainty and a lack of reproducibility. In this Review, we discuss the limitations of Matrigel and highlight synthetic alternatives for stem-cell culture, regenerative medicine and organoid assembly.