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Zeolites are industrially useful catalysts, but their synthesis is poorly understood and many predicted structures remain unsynthesized. Machine learning and graph theory are used respectively to mine the literature on zeolite transformations and to predict similar zeolite pairs that may easily be transformed into each other.
Reducing Pt content in cathodes for proton exchange membrane fuel cells is crucial to lower costs but results in high voltage losses. A Pt catalyst/support design that substantially reduces local oxygen-related mass transport resistance is reported.
Water clusters induce hole traps in organic semiconductor thin films. Detrimental effects of hole and electron traps on charge transport can be avoided by using materials with ionization energy and electron affinity within an energy window of 2.4 eV.
It is believed that the strengthening of metals by formation of nanoscale grains or coherent twin boundaries is limited to a maximum strength. Here, using experiment and theory, it is shown that the fabrication of nanocrystalline-nanotwinned Ag with trace Cu results in a hardness beyond this limit.
Plasmonic array nanolasers with Yb3+/Er3+-co-doped upconverting nanoparticles exhibit directional single-mode emission, with ultra-stable output over hours and with ultralow-threshold under continuous-wave pumping.
An investigation on Lewis acids reveals a mechanism for p-type doping of semiconducting polymers based on the formation of water–Lewis acid complexes, protonation of the polymer and electron transfer between neutral and charged chain segments.
Electrochromic displays that are stable in the coloured state for up to 52 h with no applied voltage are fabricated using molecules hosting concerted intramolecular proton-coupled electron transfer processes.
Metal fluoride conversion cathodes are promising for low-cost Li-ion batteries but suffer from poor performance at elevated temperatures. By replacing organic electrolytes with solid polymer electrolytes, long-cycle stability at 50 °C with high-capacity FeF2 cathodes is demonstrated.
Addition of MXenes in the halide perovskite film, in the electron transport layer and at the interface between these layers is shown to enhance the efficiency of and reduce hysteresis in perovskite solar cells.
A very large spin-to-charge conversion arising from a combination of the Rashba effect and topologically non-trivial states is realized at the interface of strontium titanate and aluminium, with implications for the role of topology in memory and transistor designs.
Triplet excited states related to partial molecular structures are shown to mediate spin-flip between lowest singlet and triplet excited states in multiple donor–acceptor charge-transfer-type organic molecules.
Antiferromagnetic skyrmions—which have distinct advantages over skyrmions found in other magnetic systems—are observed at room temperature in synthetic antiferromagnets. These results hold promise for low-power spintronic devices.
Integrin-mediated adhesions required for cell spreading and growth have now been shown, using super-resolution microscopy, to form on fibrous matrices through the dense assembly of integrins in nanoclusters that contain both ligand-bound and unliganded integrins.
Epithelial tissues behave as pre-tensed viscoelastic sheets that can buffer against compression and rapidly recover from buckling. Epithelial mechanical properties define a tissue-intrinsic buckling threshold that dictates the compressive strain above which tissue folds become permanent.
Metallic transition metal dichalcogenides are promising catalysts for hydrogen evolution reactions but their performances are still lower than industrial Pt and Ir electrolysers. The metallic 2H phase of niobium disulfide now exhibits enhanced current densities versus a reversible hydrogen electrode.
Layered 2D sheets can present impressive molecular sieving properties, but suffer from limited water stability. Here, a membrane composed of MoS2 sheets functionalized by hydrophobic groups displays stability and high performance for desalination under reverse osmosis.