Volume 11 Issue 9, September 2012

A rapid vascular casting approach that uses carbohydrate glass as a sacrificial template allows tissues to be built that can be kept alive for longer in the laboratory until needed for transplantation.

Improvements in electrostatic force microscopy now make it possible to measure the dielectric constant of isolated low-polarizable nanoparticles and viruses, thus enabling the label-free identification of dielectric nanomaterials of similar morphology.

The self-assembly of surfactant micelles in the formation of templated mesoporous silicas can be tuned to produce mesoporous materials with quasicrystalline ordering, proving that quasicrystals are indeed a general form of ordered but non-periodic matter.

Complex materials that challenge existing electronic materials are the subject of intense research. In particular, correlated electron effects and ionic properties, and their interplay, promise new functionalities.

The development of synthetic strategies enabling the fabrication of well-defined polymer–biomolecule conjugates, together with advances in top-down nanofabrication, are two highlights from a recent meeting of polymer scientists.

Multiferroics show simultaneous electrical and magnetic order. The suggestion that ferroelectricity in an organic multiferroic is not driven by the usual atomic displacements but instead by ordering of electronic charges opens the possibility of a new group of multiferroic compounds.

Graphene is often referred to as the strongest material in existence. That may be so for a perfect crystal, but most graphene sheets are polycrystalline, and the grain boundaries affect their mechanical properties. A new study reveals that both the density and detailed arrangement of the defects that form the grain boundaries play a significant part in determining the strength of a polycrystalline graphene sheet.

Heterostructures of very thin films have been used for decades in research and industry. Now a transmission electron microscopy study demonstrates the possibility of realizing perfect structures built by piling up one-atom-thick layers of graphene and boron nitride.

Tissues with perfusable vascular networks can be fabricated through layer-by-layer assembly, bioprinting or sacrificial moulding, but current approaches are slow, have limited resolution, or place significant constraints on the materials or the processing conditions. A rapid and general vascular casting approach using carbohydrate glass as a sacrificial template to generate tissues containing cylindrical networks that can be lined with endothelial cells and perfused with blood under high-pressure pulsatile flow is now reported.

Although nanoparticulate gold possesses remarkable catalytic activity towards oxidation reactions, catalytic activity usually cannot be observed in particles larger than 5 nm. Atomic insights into dealloyed nanoporous gold catalysts by transmission electron microscopy now demonstrate that surface defects are active sites for the catalytic oxidation of carbon monoxide and that residual silver stabilizes atomic steps.

Knowledge of the density of optical states is crucial for understanding the function of photonic devices. A method that can map optical states with subwavelength precision, and therefore allow the study and design of optical properties on the nanoscale, is now reported.

Heterointerfaces of organic semiconductors can show high electrical conductivity, but the details of their electronic structure remain largely unexplored. Schottky-gated heterostructures have now been used to probe the interface between single crystals of rubrene and PDIF-CN₂, showing that charge transport is due to electrons whose mobility exhibits band-like behaviour down to ~150 K.

Flexible strain-gauge sensors, which could eventually be used in electronic skin, generally require complex device architectures. A simple and highly sensitive resistive sensor for the detection of pressure, shear and torsion with discernible strain-gauge factors has now been fabricated using two interlocked arrays of platinum-coated polymer nanofibres.

Innovative solutions for the design of sustainable and efficient systems for the conversion and storage of renewable energy sources are needed, and one promising option is the production of hydrogen through water splitting. A nanoparticulate electrocatalytic material consisting of metallic cobalt coated with a cobalt-oxo/hydroxo-phosphate layer is now found to exhibit active hydrogen evolution, and can also be converted into a cobalt oxide film catalysing oxygen evolution.

Electrostatic force microscopy with sub-piconewton resolution can now be used for the label-free identification of single dielectric nanoparticles of similar morphology but distinct low-polarizable materials. The technique can also distinguish between empty and DNA-containing virus capsids, and should be extensible to the characterization of surface and subsurface dielectric properties of nanoscale dielectrics and biological macromolecules in general.

Many nanomaterials can induce cell autophagy, which can be either a concern in most in vivo situations or a benefit when exploited in cancer therapeutics. A family of short synthetic peptides that have a varied affinity to lanthanide oxide and lanthanide-based upconversion nanocrystals are now used to tune the degree of interaction between cells and nanocrystals, and thus the nanocrystals’ autophagy-inducing activity.

Nature Materialsis ten years old, and we use this occasion to look back at how authors, reviewers and editors have contributed to the journal. We feature on the cover of this issue a 'word cloud' that shows the most recurrent words that appeared in the titles of published articles, and discuss in an editorial statistics on manuscript decisions and on the geographical share of manuscripts and reviewers. We also list a selection of what we consider landmark articles published in the journal over the past ten years.