Commentary

As complex new materials such as nanoparticles increasingly make their way into commercial products, regulatory frameworks need to overcome a number of key challenges to remain fit for purpose.

Research on superhydrophobic materials has mostly focused on their extreme non-wettability. However, the implications of superhydrophobicity beyond wetting, in particular for transport phenomena, remain largely unexplored.

The high critical temperature and magnetic field in cuprates and Fe-based superconductors are not enough to assure applications at higher temperatures. Making these superconductors useful involves complex and expensive technologies to address many conflicting physics and materials requirements.

Superconductivity has gone from a rare event to a ground state that pops up in materials once considered improbable, if not impossible. Although we cannot predict its occurrence yet, recent discoveries give us some clues about how to look for new — hopefully more useful — superconducting materials.

The issues associated with the supply of rare-earth metals are a vivid reminder to all of us that natural resources are limited. Japan's Element Strategy Initiative is a good example of a long-term strategy towards the sustainable use of scarce elements.

Despite low transition temperatures, ferromagnetism in diluted magnetic semiconductors has been essential in exploring new ideas and concepts in spintronics, some of which have been successfully transferred to metallic ferromagnets.

Twenty-five years on from the discovery of C₆₀, the outstanding properties and potential applications of the synthetic carbon allotropes — fullerenes, nanotubes and graphene — overwhelmingly illustrate their unique scientific and technological importance.

A green use of carbon-based resources that minimizes the environmental impact of carbon fuels could allow a smooth transition from fossil fuels to a sustainable energy economy.

Mexico's economy is doing relatively well, but its science is chronically under-supported and the country's technological dependence is increasing rapidly. Without a strong science and technology base, the nation's future is at risk.

The ramifications of the Car–Parrinello method, a 25-year-old unified approach to computing properties of materials from first principles, have reached out well-beyond materials science.

The historical trajectory of materials science in Brazil shows the fast establishment of a high-quality, sizeable and productive scientific community. It is now time for a change in attitude towards real innovation and excellence.

To deepen understanding and hasten the development of treatments, cancer needs to be modelled more accurately in vitro; applying tissue-engineering concepts and approaches in this field could bridge the gap between two-dimensional studies and in vivo animal models.

Virtual worlds such as Second Life have been perceived as a social meeting point for a small following of devotees. A number of serious emerging mainstream applications may fundamentally alter this perception.

Although it is tempting to compare organic semiconductors with their inorganic counterparts, the spin-injection and spin-transport properties are fundamentally different. The challenges in understanding and improving such properties make organic spintronics an exciting field in its own right.

To counter the decreasing interest in scientific studies, the PhysiScope at the University of Geneva conveys scientific excitement to teenagers by offering an entertaining and practical way to discover physics.

Despite recent advances, thermoelectric energy conversion will never be as efficient as steam engines. That means thermoelectrics will remain limited to applications served poorly or not at all by existing technology. Bad news for thermoelectricians, but the climate crisis requires that we face bad news head on.

Despite the absence of consensus on a theory of the transition from supercooled liquids to glasses, the experimental observations suggest that a detail-independent theory should exist.