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Poly(vinylidene fluoride) exhibits a negative longitudinal piezoelectric coefficient. In situ X-ray diffraction measurements suggest that this effect is dependent on electromechanical coupling between the intermixed crystalline lamellae and amorphous regions.
An ultra-flexible cylindrical mesh embedding multiple electrodes bending away from the device is used to probe rodents’ neural activity in vivo. This geometry improves the neuron–probe contact and reduces tissue response in chronic applications.
It is shown that the large thermoelectric capability of CoSb3 skutterudite can be associated with a secondary conduction band with high valley degeneracy, which can converge with the light conduction band at high temperatures.
The asymmetric organic/vacuum interface created during the vacuum deposition of an amorphous organic layer doped with heteroleptic phosphors controls the orientation of the dopant molecules, which improves the outcoupling efficiency of organic LEDs.
Graphene/hBN moiré superlattices exhibit a new set of Dirac mini-bands, whose interband transitions—together with free electrons in the ordinary Dirac bands—modify the nature of the plasmons, as revealed by infrared near-field microscopy.
A single, self-coiled wire is shown to exhibit a Poisson function ranging from above 1 in compression to below 0 in tension. Such material architectures may offer new functionalities in mechanical devices.
Direct visualization of the motion of long-lived charge-transfer states in an organic blend reveals that bound electron–hole pairs stretch and contract, and diffuse more than 10 nm before they dissociate or recombine.
A water-resistant sunblock based on bioadhesive nanoparticles encapsulating a model ultraviolet filter at low concentrations adheres to the stratum corneum without subsequent intra-epidermal or follicular penetration.
An additive manufacturing technique combining an aqueous-based slip-casting process with magnetically directed particle assembly makes complex-shaped heterogeneous composites with tunable local microstructure and composition.
Water splitting requires a semiconductor to absorb light and a catalyst to enhance the kinetics of electron transfer. An electrodeposition method to produce efficient photoanodes for the photoelectrochemical oxidation of water to oxygen is presented.
Matrix elasticity, which has been shown to regulate the fate of mesenchymal stem cells in vitro, can also be harnessed to therapeutically control bone formation.
Production of hydrogen by water splitting demands efficient Earth-abundant catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction. An efficient ternary pyrite-type cobalt phosphosulphide catalyst for photoelectrochemical hydrogen production is now identified.
The surface plasmon modes of periodic hole arrays in Ag and Al films enhance by one order of magnitude the conductivity and the carrier mobility of organic semiconducting films deposited on these structures.
The physicochemical properties of nanoparticles can sometimes prove difficult to characterize. Using plasmonic nanospectroscopy, hydride formation thermodynamics in individual Pd nanocrystals are found to be nearly size- and shape-independent.
A Néel-type skyrmion lattice is found to be formed in the lacunar spinel GaV4S8—a polar magnetic semiconductor with rhombohedral symmetry and easy axis anisotropy.
Experiments show that the progressive softening of microtubules under mechanical stress results from the enlargement of pre-existing structural defects, and that the incorporation of tubulin dimers can restore the microtubule’s initial stiffness.
An ultraslow-fluid-like unit cell composed of acoustic channels, arranged in a zigzag shape, exhibits various tunable Mie resonances. It is used for the construction of a highly reflective metasurface that can efficiently block low-frequency sound.
Understanding the mechanisms driving the formation of 2D and 3D superlattices at the atomic scale is difficult. An approach for direct mapping of Li-enabled octahedral tilt ordering and associated strain in nanostructured perovskites is now proposed.