Volume 21 Issue 5, May 2022

Pioneer of polyamorphism and enthusiast for the solid state.

Double-shelled hollow spheres comprising of different catalytic materials are shown to enhance the efficiency of catalytic processes for the selective conversion of hydrogen and carbon monoxide to gasoline.

Spins become polarized along their momenta when travelling through chiral tellurium nanowires. The signs of chirality and current determine the orientations of polarized spins while the spin density can be tuned by electrical gating, current and external magnetic field.

Bioelectronics demand stretchable devices with steady performance under deformation. By combining an amphiphilic organic semiconducting polymer with tailored film processing, highly stretchable organic electrochemical transistors are demonstrated.

Early time transient absorption microscopy in quantum dot solids reveals anomalous exciton transport with multiple different temporal regimes within hundreds of femtoseconds after photoexcitation.

Electrically programmable Fourier-synthesized acoustic tweezers enable facile manipulation of micrometre-sized objects, colloids and living cells in a lab-on-chip device that combines high throughput with minimal invasive yet highly tunable force fields.

Coupling between nanoscale self-assembly and capillary pattern formation leads to ordered thin films with multiscale structure spanning six orders of magnitude.

Thermoelectric materials can generate energy from a heat differential. This Review provides an overview of mid- to high-temperature thermoelectrics, their application in modules, and the issues that need to be addressed to enable commercial implementation of state-of-the-art materials.

By exploring ultrafast magnetization in several compounds with similar crystal structures but different 4f magnetic elements, the authors show that the Ruderman–Kittel–Kasuya–Yosida interaction controls the spin dynamics.

Nanometre-sized clusters can self-organize into centimetre-scale hierarchical structures, mimicking the complex constructions seen in nature and providing a platform to design synthetically directed advanced materials with sophisticated functions.

All-electrical generation, manipulation and detection of spin polarization in chiral nanowires is demonstrated.

Understanding exciton dynamics in quantum dots is important for realizing their potential in optoelectronics. Here, the authors use femtosecond transient absorption microscopy to reveal ultrafast exciton transport, enhanced at larger interdot distance and taking place within hundreds of femtoseconds after generation.

Precise manipulation of colloids and cells is desired for material and life sciences. However, such control remains challenging without material modifications. Here, the authors achieve reversible single-particle manipulation with subwavelength resolution and high throughput using harmonic acoustics.

Constitutive laws underlie most physical processes, but understanding chemo-mechanical expansion in heterogeneous solids is challenging. A physically constrained image-learning approach is now proposed to obtain fundamental insight into dislocations inside battery electrodes.

Semipermeable polymeric anion exchange membranes are essential for separation, filtration and energy conversion technologies such as fuel cells. Quasi-elastic neutron scattering is now used to disentangle water, polymer relaxation and OH⁻ diffusional dynamics in a commercially available membrane.

Highly stretchable organic electrochemical transistors with stable charge transport under severe tensional strains are demonstrated using a honeycomb semiconducting polymer morphology, thereby enabling controllable signal output for diverse stretchable bioelectronic applications.

Metal oxide–zeolite bifunctional catalysts allow coupling of reactions and so enhance catalytic processes, but structure and reactivity control is difficult. Here, a general synthesis is presented for metal oxide–zeolite double-shelled hollow spheres, which outperform other catalysts for petroleum production.

Symmetry breaking in colloidal crystals is achieved with DNA-grafted programmable atom equivalents and complementary electron equivalents, whose interactions are tuned to create anisotropic crystalline precursors with well-defined coordination geometries that assemble into distinct low-symmetry crystals.

Integer topological defects promote cellular self-organization, leading to the formation of complex cellular assemblies that trigger cell differentiation and the formation of swirling cellular pillars once differentiation is inhibited. These findings suggest that integer topological defects are important modulators of cellular differentiation and tissue morphogenesis.

Early cancer detection typically involves invasive biopsies. Here the authors designed nanosensors that are depolymerized by disease-associated enzymes in vivo to produce fluorescent urinary signals for non-invasive early diagnosis.