Solid-state batteries are attractive due to their potential safety, energy density and cycle-life benefits. Recent progress in understanding inorganic solid electrolytes considering multiscale ion transport, electrochemical and mechanical properties, and processing are discussed.

See Famprikis et al.

Mobile micromachines with advanced configurations and functions self-assembled through designed dielectrophoretic interactions between structural and motor units.

See Alapan et al and Bishop News & Views

Optical or electric perturbations create a hyper-uniform pattern in a correlated electron glass.

See Gerasimenko et al.

Geometric restraints analysis and constrained optimization algorithms are used to obtain general kirigami patterns that deploy into any two- or three-dimensional shape.

See Choi et al.

Foreign body response can result in failure of biomaterials in vivo. Solvent-free crystals containing anti-fibrotic drugs now show the potential for long-term inhibition of fibrosis on a number of implantable devices in rodents and non-human primates.

See Farah et al. and Bank News & Views.

Ultrafast transition between exciton phases in van der Waals heterostructures.

See Merkl et al. and Cundiff News & Views.

Academia and industry are seeking ways to integrate 2D materials in practical and commercial applications.

See Editorial, Comment by Lin et al., Comment by Neumaier et al., News & Views by Ugeda, Perspective by Rhodes et al., Review by Bae et al. and Article by Lin et al.

A large photoresponse is observed in type-I and type-II Weyl semimetals, and attributed to the shift current associated with a Berry connection.

See Ma et al., Osterhoudt et al. and Weng News & Views

Upon ultrafast irradiation, a (PbTiO3)/(SrTiO3) superlattice transforms into a complex supercrystal that contains periodicities of up to 30 nm in size and is stable in ambient. Creation and destruction, by heating, of the supercrystal is reversible.

See Stoica et al. and Gregg News & Views.

Arrays of graphene microtransistors are used to record infraslow cortical brain activity. The reduced signal drift and the array compatibility with optical imaging techniques make these devices useful for monitoring of brain physiology.

See Masvidal-Codina et al. and Hartings News & Views

An optimized design for broad-area surface-emitting photonics-crystal laser leads to high brightness of over 300 MW cm−2 sr−1 and an output power of 10 W under pulsed excitation.

See Yoshida et al.

Elastomer sheets with programmable air channel organization swiftly shape into complex three-dimensional structures upon the application of pressure.

See Roman et al. and Efrati News & Views