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Genetically engineered bacteria could become polymer factories of the future. Bacteria can now turn non-natural chemicals into polythioesters — a new class of thermoplastic polymers hitherto inaccessible through chemical synthesis.
Design of polymer light-emitting devices usually requires a careful balance between conflicting properties: good charge transport and high-efficiency light emission. Devices fabricated from insulated polymer chains have both.
Colloids, liquid crystals, granular and biological materials occurring within the realm of 'soft matter' all have slow internal dynamics. Finding the pathways that lead these systems far from their equilibrium state has triggered a multidisciplinary research effort.
Solid-state devices that mimic biological motors can be built using magnetic flux quanta, or vortices. A new proposal describes how to transfer energy between two interacting vortex systems in a superconductor without having to physically 'sculpt' the host material.
New first-principles calculations reveal the range of atomic arrangements underlying the average crystallographic structure of a perovskite oxide, PZT. This work opens the door to understanding the exceptional physical behaviour of PZT and related systems.
The electronic properties of carbon nanotubes are predicted to be very sensitive to their structure. Combining high-resolution electron microscopy with electrical transport provides both confirmation of this and new insights into the transport mechanisms.
The ability to tune the properties of disordered materials is reaching new levels. Experiments with colloidal systems, combined with theoretical predictions, may lead to the design of novel soft materials and to a deeper understanding of the glass and gel states of matter.
