Volume 17 Issue 7, July 2022

Sub-molecular spectroscopy enables the real-space study of incoherent and coherent electronic energy transfer in artificial molecular donor–acceptor systems and their dependence on the molecular arrangement.

Information thermodynamics offers a route to measure how effectively a light-driven molecular machine converts energy from absorbed photons into pumped motion.

Artificial-muscle fibres mimic the ordered nanostructures in natural-muscle fibres to achieve promising mechanical and actuation properties.

The addition of nanoscale zeolite to Na–FeC_x unlocks the potential of catalysts for selective olefins production in a fixed-bed reactor.

Cryo-electron microscopy uncovers the interfacial failure mechanism of lithium metal anodes at the atomic scale, informing a F-rich solid-electrolyte interface design strategy for highly-reversible solid-state Li metal batteries.

The transition from a linear ‘take–make–dispose’ economy to a circular economy is gaining momentum. Although there are many opportunities for using nanotechnology to enable circularity, the knowledge gaps related to (eco-)toxicological hazards and the presence of nanomaterials in waste streams constitute significant challenges.

This Review elaborates on the recent developments and the future opportunities and challenges of fundamental research on semiconductor moiré materials, with a particular focus on transition metal dichalcogenides.

Non-reciprocal transport in a homogeneous material enables controllable current rectification, but is usually very small. Yet, artificially breaking inversion symmetry in topological insulator nanowires yields a giant magnetochiral anisotropy rectification.

Artificial molecular machines bound on polymer beads enable non-equilibrium sorption of species from solution onto a solid surface.

DNA nanotechnology enables the rational design of wide membrane nanopores for the direct and electrical single-molecule sensing of large proteins with hand-held analysis devices.

MFI zeolite crystals with a short b-axis thickness of 90–110 nm and finely controlled microporous environment effectively boosted the Fischer–Tropsch synthesis to olefins by optimizing the product diffusion on the ferric carbide catalyst.

A ferromagnetic tunnelling contact enables electrically controlled valley polarization in monolayer WSe₂.

Light harvesting in photosynthesis and photovoltaics may rely on quantum-coherent energy transfer, but experimental verification is hindered by the lossy nature of the molecular systems. Subnanometre-resolved electroluminescence spectroscopy now reveals wavelike intermolecular electronic energy transfer through quantum coherence in artificially constructed donor–acceptor heterodimers at the single-molecule level.

Friction and wear at the atomic scale are hard to capture in experiment. Real-time in situ investigations of the countermotion of two touching tungsten asperities by means of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy unveil discrete stick–slip friction and molecular dynamics simulations provide insights into the sliding pathway of the atoms at the interface.

A theoretical model captures the thermodynamic principles behind the functioning of an out-of-equilibrium photoactivated artificial molecular pump in a quantitative manner.

Nanostructured fibres with highly aligned and alternating crystalline and amorphous domains created from triblock copolymers exhibit excellent mechanical properties, multi-trigger actuation, high-performance contraction and on/off rotation.

Nitrate, a common pollutant in wastewater and groundwater, has been efficiently converted into valuable ammonia products via an electrochemical method using Ru-dispersed Cu nanowire as the catalyst.

Li-metal surfaces can be effectively protected against corrosion using fluoroethylene carbonate, leading to a conformal and stable solid–electrolyte interphase.

In vivo delivery of the CRISPR/Cas system is a promising cancer therapy approach, but its efficacy is hampered by low penetrability of nanoparticles in the stiff tumour tissue. Here the authors use dendrimer lipid nanoparticles to couple PD-L1 gene editing with knockdown of FAK, a protein involved in cell adhesion, showing that modulation of the mechanical properties of tumour cells leads to enhanced gene editing and tumour growth inhibition in four different animal models.

Pyroptosis is a programmed cell death mechanism relevant in cancer therapy that can be triggered by endocytic organelle stress, but is challenging to induce in a controlled manner. In this paper the authors engineer a library of ultra-pH-sensitive nanophotosensitizers that can target specific endocytic organelles and elicit pyroptotic cancer cell death in a controlled fashion.