Volume 8 Issue 4, April 2023

In Israel, as in most countries, the number of girls who choose to study STEM subjects in high school is still too low, and the number of women occupying leadership positions in academia and tech companies even more so. Neta Blum, a mechanical engineer who founded a programme to inspire female high-school students to choose a path in STEM, argues that mentoring is key to empower the next generation of female scientists and engineers.

An article in Nature presents a conceptually new scanning probe microscope, called a quantum twisting microscope, which enables both momentum-resolved measurements and in situ tuning of the twist angle between 2D materials stacked on top of each other.

An article in Nature Synthesis reports core–shell nanocrystals with tunable single-atom alloy layers, which are effective catalysts for nitrate electroreduction to ammonia.

An article in Angewandte Chemie reports a solution-phase synthesis method to obtain free-standing crystalline circumcoronenes.

Ultrafast spectroscopies enable the characterization of quantum materials and of their functional properties arising from strong correlations and electronic topology. This Review discusses three emerging techniques: attosecond transient absorption spectroscopy, solid-state high-harmonic generation spectroscopy and extreme ultraviolet-second harmonic generation spectroscopy.

Machine learning is increasingly popular in materials science research. This Review generalizes learnings from applied machine learning in robotics and gameplaying and extends it to materials science. In particular, hybrid approaches combining model-based and data-driven models are seeding the transition from the application of machine learning to discrete tools and workflows towards emergent knowledge.

This work provides an overview of stability in perovskite–Si tandem solar cells, elucidates key tandem-specific degradation mechanisms, considers economic factors for perovskite–Si tandem solar cells and outlines future research directions to achieve the long-term stability necessary for the commercialization of this promising technology.

Nucleic acids for gene silencing, expression and editing can precisely target disease at the molecular level but require effective delivery systems. This Review discusses the material and biological principles used to design delivery systems to target specific organs in the body.