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DNA-complexated cationic polymers with reduced charge density, high molecular weight and increased hydrophobicity show a lack of detectable cytotoxicity and efficiently deliver the apoptosis-inducing TRAIL gene to transplanted tumours in mice.
A new plasmonic sensing platform that not only allows the detection of ultrasmall quantities of biomolecules, but is also sensitive to their identity and conformational state, represents a significant advance in the study of biomolecular interactions.
No accepted description of luminescent blinking in quantum dots is currently available. Now, experiments probing the connection between charge and fluorescence intensity fluctuations unveil an unexpected source of blinking, significantly advancing our fundamental understanding of this baffling phenomenon.
Coordinated osmotic shocks within ordered materials lead to nanoperforated multilayer structures that may find application in photonics, optoelectronics and ultrafiltration.
The amount of energy that can be stored in Li-ion batteries is insufficient for the long-term needs of society, for example, for use in extended-range electric vehicles. Here, the energy-storage capabilities of Li–O2 and Li–S batteries are compared with that of Li-ion, their performances are reviewed, and the challenges that need to be overcome if such batteries are to succeed are highlighted.
An efficient scheme that realizes broad tunability of photon upconversion in core–shell nanoparticles may lead to applications in biosensing, security labelling and more.
The search for the metallic state of hydrogen at ever higher static pressures has normally required experiments to be performed at temperatures near 100 K. Now, some 30 years after the first attempts at room-temperature compression, the observation of reflective dense hydrogen promises to bring it in from the cold.
Elastic thin films attached to a foundation under compression develop wrinkles, which in turn can generate invaginated folds. Hierarchical patterns of localized folds have now been observed in thin films under biaxial compression, which show intriguing resemblance to fracture patterns in drying pastes and to venation networks in leaves.
Although heterogeneous photocatalysts for converting solar to chemical energy are mostly semiconductors, metallic plasmonic nanostructures have started to attract interest. Recent progress on plasmon-enhanced, water-splitting composite photocatalysts and photocatalytic reactions on the surface of plasmonic nanostructures of noble metals are now reviewed.
The ability to control the nuclear spins in a semiconductor quantum dot is an important step towards a long-lived and controllable electron spin qubit.
Inclusion of organic molecules in inorganic crystals is thought to enhance their mechanical properties, yet obtaining high occlusion levels has been a challenge. It is now shown that synthetic calcite single crystals incorporating a significant amount of copolymer micelles have mechanical properties similar to biogenic calcite crystals.
Suspensions of octapod-shaped nanocrystals are seen to spontaneously interlock into chains, which in turn aggregate side-by-side to form three-dimensional crystals. The observed hierarchical self-assembly can be explained by the octapod's shape and the solvent-tunable van der Waals interactions.
Molecular ligands are widely used to functionalize gold nanoparticles, but their influence on the particle structure has been difficult to probe. Coherent X-ray diffraction has now reached sufficient sensitivity to resolve adsorption-induced near-surface stress in a single nanocrystal.
Surfaces are known to act as catalysts for the nucleation of crystals. Using polymer films patterned with nanopores, it is now shown that the shape of the pores can control the kinetics of surface-induced crystal nucleation.
It is often assumed that there is a conflict in structural materials between strength (resistance to non-recoverable deformation) and toughness (resistance to fracture), which cannot be optimized at the same time. In this review, new fundamental insight and lessons from nature demonstrate how this conflict can be resolved through a design on different length scales.
