Research articles

Unit-cell-thick films of metal–organic frameworks with ordered porosity would be attractive for membrane applications as these thin systems combine large molecular flux with high selectivity. Here crystalline ZIF films are grown on a crystalline substrate with high H₂/N₂ gas separation performance.

Trapped films of air known as plastrons are promising for underwater engineering but typically have short lifetimes. Here, aerophilic titanium alloy surfaces are developed with thermodynamically stabilized plastrons for antifouling applications.

Laminin, an important component of the extracellular matrix supporting the epithelium, hinders the typical mechanoresponse of epithelial cells to an increase in substrate stiffness, by protecting the cell nucleus from mechanical deformation.

Dynamic disorder reduces the carrier mobility in organic semiconductors (OSs) to an extent that depends on their specific electronic band structure. Here the authors study the temperature-dependent hole mobility of two structurally similar OSs and find that thermal access to transiently delocalized states enhances hole mobility in C8-DNTT-C8 compared to DNTT.

Polyethylene glycol conjugation to chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR T) cells creates a physical block between CAR T cell interactions and other immune and tumour cells, controlling tumour lysis and immune response stimulation to mitigate cytokine release syndrome.

The rational design of out-of-equilibrium demixing transitions remains challenging. Active fluids are used to control the liquid–liquid phase separation of passive DNA nanostars and establish the activity-based control of the phase diagram.

Organic luminophores emit a bright near-infrared afterglow after X-ray irradiation and outperform commercially available radio sensitizers by producing higher levels of singlet oxygen, having potential applications in precision cancer theranostics.

Two-dimensional crystals of hexagonal boron nitride become fluorescent when immersed in common solvents. Now, this phenomenon is used in the design of in-liquid sensors operating at the nanometre scale.

The authors use low-temperature transport measurements to report superconductivity in a twisted double bilayer graphene system.

Ethylene separation from ethane is the most energy-intensive separation in the chemical process industry, but so far membranes have not exceeded an ethylene/ethane selectivity of >20 in mixed gases. Here a carbon molecular sieve with an ethylene selectivity of ~100 and long-term stability under high-pressure gas is reported.

It is difficult to program a single stimuli-responsive geometry to transform into diverse final configurations in a systematic manner. Here, linearly responsive transparent hydrogels are developed to create micro-metastructures with wide-spectrum thermal reconfigurability.

Employing a widefield cryogenic microscope to parallelize resonant spectroscopy, chip-scale automated optical characterization of solid-state quantum emitters is demonstrated.

Hydrogels are promising materials but are often limited by inadequate mechanical properties and time-consuming fabrication processes. Here the authors demonstrate a rapid biomimetic interfacial-bonding nanocomposite strategy for ultra-tough hydrogels with high tensile strength.

Nanoparticle retention inside tumours has been associated with lymphatic vessel collapse. It is now shown that nanoparticles exit from solid tumours through lymphatic vessels in or surrounding the tumour by a nanoparticle-size-dependent mechanism.

An ultrahigh fatigue-resistant AlSi10Mg alloy is achieved by additive manufacturing, with its three-dimensional dual-phase cellular nanostructure acting as a strong volumetric nanocage to inhibit fatigue damage accumulation.

Solid-state pressure sensors have performance limitations in liquid environments. Here, the authors design a pressure sensor using solid–liquid–liquid–gas multiphasic interfaces where a trapped air layer modulates capacitance changes with pressure to achieve near-friction-free contact line motions for near-ideal pressure sensing.

Using doped InAs multilayers under moderate external magnetic fields with gradient epsilon-near-zero frequencies, broadband non-reciprocal absorption that can be tailored within the mid-infrared spectral region has been demonstrated.

Proximity-induced chiral quantum emission is generated by applying nanoindentation on monolayer WSe₂ on an antiferromagnetic van der Waals material (NiPS₃) at zero external magnetic fields, reporting a degree of circular polarization of 0.89 and a single-photon purity of 95%.

Ferroelectricity in hafnia-based systems seems to be correlated with oxygen vacancy dynamics, but the coupling of this and ferroelectric response is rarely studied. Here it is shown that Hf_0.5Zr_0.5O₂ can be antiferroionic, with antiferroelectric behaviour coupled to surface electrochemistry.

Controlling the periodicity of synthesized moiré materials is vital to harness their unique physics. Here the authors realize the van der Waals epitaxy of tunable moiré heterostructures and reveal the epitaxial science governing their formation.