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Simultaneously highly elastic and deformable gels that maintain their mechanical properties have remained elusive. Here, using in situ polymerization confined within nanochannels, the authors prepare hysteresis-free gels insensitive to crack propagation.
The production of ammonia via the Haber–Bosch process is carbon-intensive and centralized, but electrochemical methods such as lithium-mediated processes in organic electrolytes could enable decentralized production using renewable energy. Calcium is now shown to mediate nitrogen reduction for ammonia synthesis.
Pro-regenerative biomaterials for the treatment of muscle injury induce the proliferation of a dendritic cell population associated with cross-presentation and self-tolerance, promoting a pro-regenerative immune environment to aid muscle wound healing.
The authors report the emergence of quadrupolar excitons in angle-aligned WSe2/WS2/WSe2 heterotrilayers characterized by a delocalized hole residing in both outer WSe2 layers, electric-field tunability and reduced exciton–exciton interactions.
The authors report the emergence of quadrupolar excitons in WS2/WSe2/WS2 trilayer heterostructures where the electron is layer-hybridized in WS2 layers and the hole localizes in WSe2. Quadrupolar excitons exhibit distinct behaviour under electric fields, enriching exciton–exciton interactions.
Solid polymer electrolytes are crucial for the development of lithium batteries, but their lower ionic conductivity compared with liquid/ceramics at room temperature limits their practical use. Precise positioning of designed repeating units in alternating polymer sequences now allows the Li+ conductivity to be tuned by up to three orders of magnitude.
Thermal fractionation of petroleum consumes large amounts of energy. Here stable microporous polymers are synthesized using click chemistry, which have similar performance to commercial polyimides for the fractionation of light crude oils and successful application to heavy feeds under realistic conditions.
The process of protein crystallization is poorly understood and difficult to program through the primary sequence. Here the authors develop a computational approach to designing three-dimensional protein crystals with prespecified lattice architectures with high accuracy.
Magneto-gas vesicles, protein nanostructures with enhanced ultrasound signal and sensitivity, enable the non-invasive, long-term and quantitative monitoring of the mechanics of three-dimensional tissues and animals.
Membrane/catalyst systems in the oxidative coupling of methane are promising for their high product selectivity but suffer from low volumetric chemical conversion rates, high capital cost and optimizing performance. A dual-layer additive manufacturing process, based on phase inversion, is now proposed to optimize a hollow-fibre membrane/catalyst system.
Encapsulation annealing leads to atomic reconstruction of transition metal dichalcogenide layers into fully commensurate structures with zero twist angle, enabling control over interfacial properties.
Self-rectifying magnetoelectric metamaterials with nonlinear responses generate electrical pulse sequences that enable precisely timed remote neural stimulation and restoration of sensory motor responses in vivo.
Lithium-rich nickel manganese cobalt oxide cathodes are widely explored due to their high capacities related to their anionic redox chemistry. A compositional optimization pathway for these materials investigating the variation of using cobalt and nickel now provides valuable guidelines for future high-capacity cathode design.
Ferroelectric dead layers can form at perovskite interfaces—a major challenge in integrating oxide thin films into devices. Here, by depositing an in-plane-polarized epitaxial buffer layer of Bi5FeTi3O15, out-of-plane polarization is demonstrated in ultrathin films down to the single-unit-cell level.
It remains challenging to integrate memory, sensing and computing in one device. Here a compact in-memory sensing and computing architecture based on ferroelectric-defined reconfigurable two-dimensional photodiode arrays has been reported.
A route to the rapid and batch production of 12 inch MoS2 monolayers is reported, which shows a synergistic optimization of scale–cost–performance metrics for a transition from lab to fab.
Extracting information about polymer network topology from mechanical properties alone remains challenging. Here the authors develop a forensic approach to quantify network structural information by analysing their nonlinear mechanics.
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) tape is widely used for lithium-ion batteries but its chemical stability has been largely overlooked. Reversible self-discharge is now shown to be virtually eliminated in LiFePO4–graphite cells by replacing PET with polypropylene jellyroll tape.
The room-temperature self-healing behaviour of a nanotwinned diamond composite is quantitatively evaluated and found to stem from both the formation of nanoscale diamond osteoblasts and the atomic interaction transition from repulsion to attraction.