Volume 14 Issue 2, February 2019

The connection between properties and environmental performance of graphene-derived structures is necessary to develop materials that can improve industry standards.

DNA origami unravels the role of target spacing in antibody binding.

On the route towards a useful quantum computer, we must not ignore the materials challenges facing us nor the opportunities that materials science may provide for disruptive new qubits.

Ultrasoft, flexible nanoelectronics enables electrical monitoring and chemical alteration of the behaviour of stem-cell-derived cardiomyocytes.

The asymmetry of electron–hole diffusion velocities in intrinsic graphene can give rise to efficient photocurrent generation.

This review discusses relationships between the material properties of three-dimensional graphene structures and their environmental performance.

A graphene-based Josephson junction incorporated in a superconducting circuit forms a voltage-tunable transmon qubit that can be controlled coherently.

Zigzag arrays of silicon nanoparticles show topologically protected third-harmonic generation at the nanoscale.

An antiferromagnetic memory with piezoelectric strain control can be operated in high magnetic fields and combines a small device footprint with low switching power.

A phosphorus dopant qubit is positioned within a vertically gated single-electron transistor with <5 nm alignment precision and its spin is read with 97.9% fidelity.

The long-range magnetic order in an artificial crystal that exhibits emergent ferrotoroidicity on the mesoscale can be manipulated by an effective magnetic vortex field that is generated by a scanning process with a magnetic tip.

A photocurrent enhancement at the charge neutrality point is observed in graphene when the Fermi level matches the Dirac point.

Electrical damage of insulating polypropylene can be healed by heating surface-functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles dispersed in the polymer with oscillating magnetic fields, which activates nanoparticle diffusion and local melting of the damaged regions.

Ultrasoft nanomesh electronics enable monitoring of the field potential of cardiomyocytes without interference with their natural motion.

A new method uses nanomechanical motion to probe internal electron dynamics in an insulator.

Sheet alignment and orientation order of graphene structures induced by microfluidics design enable the optimization of electronic and mechanical properties of macroscopic graphene fibres.

A DNA-based nanosensor that simultaneously measures pH and chloride concentrations can chemically resolve different subpopulations of lysosomes in live cells derived from healthy individuals and patients with Niemann–Pick disease.

The ordered display of antigen patterns on DNA origami platforms combined with surface plasmon resonance chips allows the investigation of the affinity and kinetics of the antigen–antibody bivalent binding in relation to the antigen distance and antibody flexibility.