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Nanoparticles with alternating striations of hydrophobic and hydrophilic ligands cross the cell membrane by a direct mechanism — a route that delivers them to the main compartment of the cell while leaving the membrane undisrupted.
Although the Internet has fundamentally changed the way we communicate, science publishing is remarkably hesitant in making full use of the potential offered by new technology.
The presence of organic solvents in solar cells has hindered the application of devices, especially in flexible cells. Now, by mixing three solid salts, a solvent-free liquid electrolyte for dye-sensitized solar cells has been discovered that shows both excellent efficiency and stability.
The interfaces between some perovskite oxide insulators show spectacular electronic properties, originating from the formation of an electron gas. The spatial extent of the electron gas is still under debate. Conducting tip atomic force microscopy is now used to show that, depending on the growth conditions, the high-mobility electron gas can extend to hundreds of micrometres or to just a few nanometres from the interface.
The toughness of human bone is difficult to measure, as it is more difficult to break than to split. It is now shown that in the transverse orientation, relevant for breaking, bone is much tougher than previously thought owing to a surprising increase in toughness during the growth of small cracks.
The occupation of specific crystallographic sites by tetrahedrally coordinated aluminium atoms in zeolites has a strong influence on their catalytic and separation performance. X-ray standing waves are now used to directly and unambiguously determine the distribution and ordering of aluminium on active sites in a microporous scolecite system.
One of the obstacles in using nanocrystals as fluorophores is that they tend to blink. This was thought to be a very general feature. Now, very-high-quality core–shell CdSe–CdS nanocrystals showing highly reduced blinking have been grown. The reduced blinking seems to be related to the thickness of the CdS shell and the high quality of the core–shell interfaces.
Cooled liquids that fail to reach their thermodynamic ground state either form gels or glasses. Their formation is thought to be promoted by stable local atomic structures. The role of these local structures has now been verified in experiments that also show that their structural variety is much larger than expected.
The observation of metallic conductivity at interfaces between layers of organic insulators opens the way to the realization of a wide range of electronic systems that cannot be prepared in bulk organic materials.
Fabrication of complex two-dimensional patterns is now possible using ‘rails’ as a guiding mechanism for the self-assembly of microstructures within fluidic channels. The method is efficient, and heterogeneous systems, for example patterns of different living cells for tissue engineering, can be made with high precision.
The electronic properties of interfaces between two different solids can differ strikingly from those of the constituent materials, as demonstrated by the high conductivity at the interface between insulating perovskite oxide layers. Metallic conductivity is now observed at the interface between organic insulators, which promises new scientific developments for organic electronics.
Although ferroelectric polarization is of interest for the development of non-volatile memories, the read-out of the polarization state is destructive. The blending of semiconducting and ferroelectric polymers in a phase-separated network achieves non-volatile memory arrays that can be read out non-destructively.
One-dimensional metals are predicted to exhibit charge-order fluctuations and become insulators at low temperature. Experiments on silicide nanowires grown on silicon reveal that fluctuations in the narrowest wires determine the electronic properties, and can be exploited in nanoelectronic devices.
Nanomagnets are very promising structures for magnetic data storage. However, it is found that during exposure to ambient oxygen for processing, a nanomagnet develops a sidewall oxide layer that is detrimental for its magnetic properties. The problem can be solved by deposition of a metal layer (aluminium) that reduces and almost eliminates the problem.
The room-temperature manipulation of magnetization by an electric field using the multiferroic BiFeO3 represents an essential step towards the magnetoelectric control of spintronics devices.
