Self-assembly articles within Nature Materials

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  • News & Views |

    Pentagonal polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS)-based giant atoms self-assemble into Frank–Kasper phases that have not been previously observed in soft-matter systems.

    • Pengyu Chen
    •  & Kevin D. Dorfman

  • Article |

    Soft building blocks tend to be near spherical, limiting their packing structures to those found in metallic systems. Here the authors report the spontaneous generation of highly deformed mesoatoms using molecular pentagons and observe Frank–Kasper phases not found in metal alloys.

    • Xian-You Liu
    • , Xiao-Yun Yan
    •  & Stephen Z. D. Cheng

  • Article |

    Autonomous assembly, reconfiguration and disassembly are observed in living aggregates, but are difficult to replicate in synthetic soft matter. Here mechanically interlocked responsive ribbons form transient viscoelastic solids for the on-demand assembly of functional materials.

    • Mustafa K. Abdelrahman
    • , Robert J. Wagner
    •  & Taylor H. Ware

  • Feature |

    Kinetic trapping in supramolecular gels leads to varied morphologies and macroscopic properties. Emily R. Draper and Dave J. Adams discuss subtle experimental effects that can lead to reproducibility issues in these systems.

    • Emily R. Draper
    •  & Dave J. Adams

  • Article |

    Production of bulk bicontinuous materials is limited by the ability to make uniform microarchitectures across large volumes. Here elastic microphase separation is used to fabricate bicontinuous materials with a homogeneous microstructure, with feature sizes tuned by the matrix stiffness.

    • Carla Fernández-Rico
    • , Sanjay Schreiber
    •  & Eric R. Dufresne

  • Article |

    The process of protein crystallization is poorly understood and difficult to program through the primary sequence. Here the authors develop a computational approach to designing three-dimensional protein crystals with prespecified lattice architectures with high accuracy.

    • Zhe Li
    • , Shunzhi Wang
    •  & David Baker

  • Article |

    A discovery-oriented synthesis and characterization platform uses interchangeable polymer components to explore a large and complex parameter space to find possible combinations of components that satisfy the design rules at multiple nanolithography patterns dimensions.

    • Hongbo Feng
    • , Moshe Dolejsi
    •  & Paul F. Nealey

  • Comment |

    Twentieth-century utopian visions of a space-age future have been eclipsed by dystopian fears of climate change and environmental degradation. Avoiding such grim forecasts depends on materials innovation and our ability to predict and plan not only their behaviour but also their sustainable manufacture, use and recyclability.

    • Philip Ball

  • News & Views |

    Lipid nanodiscs carrying a potent STING agonist penetrate deep into solid tumours compared with gold-standard liposomes and enable long-term antitumour immunotherapy.

    • Ningqiang Gong
    •  & Michael J. Mitchell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors investigate lipid nanodiscs as drug carriers for antitumour immunotherapy. They demonstrate that flexible lipid nanodiscs functionalized with STING-activating cyclic dinucleotides exhibit superior tumour penetration and tumour cell uptake compared with spherical liposomes, resulting in improved antitumour T-cell priming and tumour regression.

    • Eric L. Dane
    • , Alexis Belessiotis-Richards
    •  & Darrell J. Irvine

  • Perspective |

    Molecular weaving is the entanglement of one-dimensional flexible molecules into higher-dimensional networks. This Perspective provides an overview of the progress so far, and discusses the future challenges and potentials of this field.

    • Zhi-Hui Zhang
    • , Björn J. Andreassen
    •  & Liang Zhang

  • Article |

    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.

    • Shunzhi Wang
    • , Sangmin Lee
    •  & Chad A. Mirkin

  • Article |

    The large-scale fabrication of cellulose nanocrystal photonic films in a roll-to-roll device is achieved by careful optimization of the cellulose nanocrystal formulation and its controlled deposition and drying on a substrate. Once dry, these photonic films can be peeled and milled into effect pigments, highlighting the potential of cellulose nanocrystals as a sustainable material for industrial photonic applications.

    • Benjamin E. Droguet
    • , Hsin-Ling Liang
    •  & Silvia Vignolini

  • Article |

    The solvent-free conversion of phthalonitrile derivatives into phthalocyanines in the bulk is described, involving a reductive cyclotetramerization step and the formation of one-dimensional single-crystalline fibres. This solvent-free autocatalytic supramolecular polymerization may enable for a sustainable fabrication of multi-block supramolecular copolymers.

    • Zhen Chen
    • , Yukinaga Suzuki
    •  & Takuzo Aida

  • News & Views |

    Light-activated protein actuators composed of bioengineered motors and molecular scaffolds achieve millimetre-scale mechanical work, which holds promise for microrobotics applications.

    • Henry Hess

  • Article |

    Programmable triangular DNA blocks self-assemble into distinct icosahedral shells with specific geometry and apertures that can encapsulate viruses and decrease viral infection.

    • Christian Sigl
    • , Elena M. Willner
    •  & Hendrik Dietz

  • Article |

    Stacked elastomeric arrays containing plasmonic nanoparticles show efficient chiral responses that can be fully controlled by mechanical compression and stack rotation. These simple layered materials may be useful modulators for photonic applications.

    • Patrick T. Probst
    • , Martin Mayer
    •  & Andreas Fery

  • Article |

    Hierarchically structured 3D materials made of distinct colloidal particles spontaneously assemble by combining the electrostatic modulation of particle interactions to form supracolloids that are organized into 3D structures on solvent drying in an entropy-driven process.

    • Mohammad-Amin Moradi
    • , E. Deniz Eren
    •  & Joseph P. Patterson

  • News & Views |

    Programmable DNA hybridization is used to mediate the self-assembly of substrate-bound DNA-grafted gold nanoparticles into single-crystalline Winterbottom and non-Winterbottom constructions with particular size, shape and orientation.

    • Chang Liu
    •  & Qian Chen

  • News & Views |

    Magnetite crystals form by the aggregation and subsequent merger of crystalline precursors, which can be interpreted in terms of colloidal assembly.

    • Jeffrey D. Rimer

  • News & Views |

    Low-electron-dose liquid-cell transmission electron microscopy reveals a two-step nucleation process during the crystallization of triangular nanoplatelets in water at the single-particle level.

    • Yilong Han

  • News & Views |

    Using organic solvent shortens formation time of membrane nanosheets comprising proteins and copolymers, while tuning protein structure tailors the pore geometry, resulting in superior water permeation.

    • Andrew G. Livingston
    •  & Zhiwei Jiang

  • Article |

    Protein channels are highly selective, but application in membranes is limited due to low protein content. Here, protein channels are embedded into block copolymers to form nanosheets using rapid solvent casting, with better water permeability and similar molecular exclusions relative to other membrane systems.

    • Yu-Ming Tu
    • , Woochul Song
    •  & Manish Kumar

  • Article |

    Low-dose liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy, particle tracking and numerical simulations are used to characterize the crystallization kinetics and pathways of gold nanoprisms at the single-particle level.

    • Zihao Ou
    • , Ziwei Wang
    •  & Qian Chen

  • Letter |

    The kinetics and thermodynamics of the nucleation of magnetite crystals from primary particles are shown to be described by colloidal assembly theory, allowing for predictions of crystal sizes to be made.

    • Giulia Mirabello
    • , Alessandro Ianiro
    •  & Nico A. J. M. Sommerdijk

  • Article |

    A structural investigation on the formation of 3D superlattices of colloidal PbSe quantum dots reveals a topotactic transition from the self-assembled phase of ligand-capped quantum dots to the epitaxially fused phase typical of conductive solids.

    • Alex Abelson
    • , Caroline Qian
    •  & Matt Law

  • Article |

    Geometric analysis and constrained optimization algorithms allow for the design of kirigami patterns that can be deployed into any two- or three-dimensional shape.

    • Gary P. T. Choi
    • , Levi H. Dudte
    •  & L. Mahadevan

  • Article |

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

    • Yunus Alapan
    • , Berk Yigit
    •  & Metin Sitti

  • Letter |

    By using stacked macrocycle dimers, a 2D nanosheet self-assembles that exclusively captures a single enantiomer, and can release it by external stimulus via salt addition.

    • Bo Sun
    • , Yongju Kim
    •  & Myongsoo Lee

  • Article |

    Molecular simulations reveal the self-assembly of small molecules into nanoparticle drug carriers. Targeting of colon and liver cancer cells by the nanoparticles via kinase inhibitors is employed in anti-tumour therapy in vivo.

    • Yosi Shamay
    • , Janki Shah
    •  & Daniel A. Heller

  • News & Views |

    Nanoparticle mimics of heparan sulfate proteoglycans offer a new strategy for the inhibition of a range of viral infections.

    • Benson J. Edagwa
    •  & Howard E. Gendelman

  • News & Views |

    The chirality of colloids dispersed in achiral liquid crystals shapes colloidal dynamics and interactions, giving rise to chiral supramolecular assemblies and attractive or repulsive colloidal motions.

    • Karthik Nayani
    • , Young-Ki Kim
    •  & Nicholas L. Abbott

  • Article |

    Colloidal chiral springs and helices are formed by light inside a nematic liquid crystal suspension, predefining the mesoscopic superstructures self-assembled in such systems.

    • Ye Yuan
    • , Angel Martinez
    •  & Ivan I. Smalyukh

  • News & Views |

    In contrast with protocols reporting self-assembly of nanocrystals after synthesis, Pd nanocrystals rapidly form 3D micrometre-size superlattices during growth. The nanocrystals keep growing after assembly, tuning the size of the lattice.

    • Kun Liu
    •  & Eugenia Kumacheva

  • News & Views |

    Sound waves drive the organization of particle scatterers into stable structures, exhibiting phononic band gaps that heal from disturbances and adapt to changes in the drive.

    • Kyle J. M. Bishop

  • Article |

    Viscoelastic phase separation of colloidal suspensions can be interrupted to form gels either by glass transition or crystallization. A kinetic pathway to spontaneously form network or porous structures made of metallic and semiconducting crystals is proposed.

    • Hideyo Tsurusawa
    • , John Russo
    •  & Hajime Tanaka

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