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The fast-paced economic development in China needs to be complemented by strong support for fundamental research, particularly in the materials sciences.
The propagation of submillimetre cracks reveals how the numerous internal structural dimensions in bone lead to a toughness that varies with orientation and scale.
The in vivo characteristics of the extracellular matrix, such as biochemical, mechanical and flow properties, are a challenge to mimic in vitro. Now, a three-dimensional hydrogel structure with integrated multiple phases shows promise as such a model.
Biological factors are not the only influence on stem-cell behaviour — the physics and chemistry of the environment play a part too. The interaction of materials science and stem-cell science brings with it a wealth of opportunities for future therapies.
In solid-state lighting, phosphors are typically used to complement the blue light of the original emitter to achieve white-light emission. The capability to deposit certain phosphors at much lower temperatures than previously enables their use on organic substrates and opens the door to fabricate large-area white-light emitters.
The scales of a fish are its first level of defence. Now, the multilayered structure of fish scales has been analysed according to its mechanical properties and penetration resistance. This study of the four different layers provides a mechanistic understanding of evolutionary design as well as inspiring new materials for armour protection.
Electrodes exhibiting single-phase lithium insertion processes can be advantageous for storage applications such as lithium-ion batteries. By modifying the particle size and ion ordering of LiFeFO4 electrodes an unprecedented single-phase room-temperature process is observed.
Precise control over the geometry of nanoscale one-dimensional structures is challenging. Cylindrical polymer brushes have now been used to synthesize organo-silica hybrid nanowires that are not only soluble in water but also in many organic solvents.
Although lithium iron phosphate is a promising electrode material for lithium-ion batteries, its intercalation mechanism remains unclear. Characterization by X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy demonstrates that the lithium deintercalation process occurs as a wave moving through the crystal, and can be described by a domino-cascade model
Typically, metal alloys are protected from corrosion through the formation of an oxide layer. Nevertheless, alloy degradation does occur. It is now shown that metallic nanoparticles in the oxide layer are instrumental to this process. On the basis of this understanding, improvements in alloy degradation by careful choice of composition are demonstrated.
Although phase-change materials are of significant importance for optical and electronic information storage applications, the search for new materials so far has been based on empirical methods. Now, the discovery that their crystalline phase shows resonant bonding opens the way to a deterministic search for new phase-change materials.
Elucidation of the framework structure of zeolites can sometimes prove difficult. The combination of powder diffraction and electron microscopy using a charge-flipping algorithm enables ordered silicon vacancies in a zeolite catalyst to be revealed.
Recent work has provided evidence for the existence of a liquid–liquid transition (LLT) in some single-component fluids. It is now shown that the LLT can be used to control the fluidity and miscibility of triphenyl phosphite with another molecular liquid, demonstrating the possibility of the first definite application for exploiting this phenomenon.
