Soft materials articles within Nature Materials

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  • News & Views |

    Knot-shaped micrometric tubes embedded in a liquid crystal induce the formation of defect lines that loop around the knotted tubes to form knots.

    • William T. M. Irvine
    •  & Dustin Kleckner

  • News & Views |

    Synthetic polymer gels with certain surface chemistries can be glued together by a simple and inexpensive method that uses commercially available silica nanoparticles. Biological tissues can also be joined by this nanotechnological route, eliminating the need for sutures, additional adhesives or chemical reactions.

    • Eric A. Appel
    •  & Oren A. Scherman

  • News & Views |

    The spontaneous organization of semiconductor nanoparticles into uniform pairs of parallel nanorods bridged at their ends illustrates the potential of hierarchical self-assembly processes for the formation of inorganic superstructures with complexity comparable to that of small self-organized biological aggregates.

    • Bongjun Yeom
    •  & Nicholas A. Kotov

  • News & Views |

    The experimental observation of polariton condensates at room temperature in soft organic materials makes the study of quantum condensed phases easily accessible and opens inroads to optoelectronic devices based on macroscopic quantum phenomena.

    • Pavlos Lagoudakis

  • News & Views |

    DNA-capped nanoparticles crystallize into uniform microcrystals of Wulff polyhedra when cooled slowly through the melting temperature of the DNA linkers.

    • Shogo Hamada
    • , Shawn J. Tan
    •  & Dan Luo

  • Letter |

    Colloidal particles dispersed in liquid crystals induce nematic fields and topological defects that are dictated by the topology of the colloidal particles. However, little is known about such interplay of topologies. It is now shown that knot-shaped microparticles in liquid crystals induce defect lines that get entangled with the colloidal knots, and that such mutually tangled configurations satisfy topological constraints and follow predictions from knot theory.

    • Angel Martinez
    • , Miha Ravnik
    •  & Ivan I. Smalyukh

  • Research Highlights |

    • Luigi Martiradonna

  • News & Views |

    Planar patterns of colloidal microparticles have been manufactured with high yield over square centimetre areas by using magnetic-field microgradients in a paramagnetic fluid. This approach could evolve into technology capable of printing three-dimensional objects through programmable and reconfigurable 'magnetic pixels'.

    • Changqian Yu
    • , Jie Zhang
    •  & Steve Granick

  • Article |

    Although it has been shown that engineering of conducting polymers such as poly(3,4-ethyldioxythiophene) can improve the Seebeck coefficient and the figure of merit ZT of these materials, the mechanisms underlying this improved thermoelectric behaviour are still not fully understood. It is now reported that the band structure of semicrystalline films of these bipolaronic polymers, resembling that of inorganic semi-metals used for thermoelectric applications, can explain these findings.

    • Olga Bubnova
    • , Zia Ullah Khan
    •  & Xavier Crispin

  • Letter |

    A requirement for the reversible mechanical actuation of liquid-crystal elastomers is macroscale alignment. However, current processing techniques do not achieve reliable and robust alignment, which limits the practical use of these materials as actuators and artificial muscles. It is now shown that by introducing polymers with exchangeable covalent bonds, liquid-crystal elastomers can be easily processed and aligned, and subsequently remodelled.

    • Zhiqiang Pei
    • , Yang Yang
    •  & Yan Ji

  • Article |

    In organic semiconductors, disorder-induced traps can alter the mobility of the charges and introduce noise in transport measurements. It is now shown that simple drop-casting of perfluoropolyether on top of organic single-crystals is an effective strategy for healing charge traps. This method allows the intrinsic transport properties of these materials to be recovered as well as suppressing noise in Hall effect measurements.

    • B. Lee
    • , Y. Chen
    •  & V. Podzorov

  • News & Views |

    Poorly ordered films of conjugated polymers that show high charge mobility recently challenged the idea that disorder is detrimental for electrical conduction. Systematic studies now reveal that long polymeric chains can bridge small crystalline domains thus supporting charge transport on length scales relevant for device operation.

    • Vitaly Podzorov

  • News & Views |

    Advances in photochemistry have profoundly impacted the way in which biology is studied. Now, a photoactivated enzymatic patterning method that offers spatiotemporal control over the presentation of bioactive proteins to direct cells in three-dimensional culture significantly expands the available chemical toolbox.

    • Daniel L. Alge
    •  & Kristi S. Anseth

  • Editorial |

    As with the ongoing debate on the degree of wetting transparency of supported graphene, transparency in both pre- and post-publication peer review is a contentious concept.

  • News & Views |

    Pristine graphitic surfaces seem to be more hydrophilic than previously assumed because of the unexpected influence of the quick adsorption of hydrocarbons from air.

    • Ke Xu
    •  & James R. Heath

  • Commentary |

    For the case of water on supported graphene, about 30% of the van der Waals interactions between the water and the substrate are transmitted through the one-atom-thick layer.

    • Chih-Jen Shih
    • , Michael S. Strano
    •  & Daniel Blankschtein

  • Article |

    A strategy for assessing blood microcirculation and tissue hydration relies on monitoring the temperature and thermal conductivity of skin, respectively. It is now shown that arrays of micrometre-sized sensors and heaters can be integrated on stretchable substrates that conformably adhere to the skin; these devices allow spatially resolved heating and real-time temperature mapping in patients without limiting their motion.

    • R. Chad Webb
    • , Andrew P. Bonifas
    •  & John A. Rogers

  • Editorial |

    The discovery of catalysts that dictated polymer sterochemistry, which earned a Nobel prize for Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta 50 years ago, initiated the modern age of controlled polymer synthesis.

  • Article |

    The recent demonstration that highly disordered polymer films can transport charges as effectively as polycrystalline semiconductors has called into question the relationship between structural order and mobility in organic materials. It is now shown that, in high-molecular-weight polymers, efficient charge transport is allowed due to a network of interconnected aggregates that are characterized by short-range order.

    • Rodrigo Noriega
    • , Jonathan Rivnay
    •  & Alberto Salleo

  • Article |

    Polyampholyte hydrogels synthesized from the random polymerization of oppositely charged ionic monomers are shown to be mechanically tough and highly viscoelastic. Strong ionic bonds within the gel act as permanent crosslinks and weaker ionic bonds reversibly break and re-form, enhancing the fracture resistance, shock absorbance and self-healing properties of the materials.

    • Tao Lin Sun
    • , Takayuki Kurokawa
    •  & Jian Ping Gong

  • News & Views |

    The entropic repulsion between tethered molecular brushes at fluid interfaces templates the mixing of otherwise incompatible macromolecules.

    • Igal Szleifer

  • News & Views |

    A general approach for decorating nanoparticles with a highly dense shell of DNA linkers expands the range of building blocks that can be used for DNA-mediated nanoparticle self-assembly.

    • Ulrich Simon

  • Article |

    Contact-angle and spectroscopy experiments on clean supported graphene and graphite show that these surfaces become more hydrophobic as they adsorb airborne hydrocarbons. Furthermore, the water contact angle on these graphitic surfaces decreases if these contaminants are partially removed by both thermal annealing and controlled ultraviolet–ozone treatments, suggesting that graphitic surfaces are more hydrophilic than previously believed.

    • Zhiting Li
    • , Yongjin Wang
    •  & Haitao Liu

  • Letter |

    Surface-active macromolecules that are chemically different can be mixed at fluid interfaces if the molecules attract each other, or if they have complementary shapes and a net attraction is induced by a depletant. Now, a strategy that eludes the need for complementarity between the molecules, where tethered molecular brushes induce an entropic net repulsion between like species, achieves long-range arrays of perfectly mixed macromolecules.

    • Sergei S. Sheiko
    • , Jing Zhou
    •  & Michael Rubinstein

  • News & Views |

    Tissue-mimicking printed networks of droplets separated by lipid bilayers that can be functionalized with membrane proteins are able to spontaneously fold and transmit electrical currents along predefined paths.

    • Naside Gozde Durmus
    • , Savas Tasoglu
    •  & Utkan Demirci

  • Letter |

    A highly selective and efficient approach to covalently bond complementary DNA strands in solution and on surfaces on demand is shown. The approach involves the substitution of a pair of complementary bases by cinnamate-based crosslinks, which can be activated on exposure to ultraviolet light, and allows chemical patterning of flat and curved surfaces down to micrometre and potentially submicrometre resolutions.

    • Lang Feng
    • , Joy Romulus
    •  & Paul Chaikin

  • Letter |

    The conversion of a spin current into an electric signal is known as the inverse spin Hall effect, and is expected to enable the full potential of spintronic devices to be realized. Although the effect has been extensively studied in inorganic metals and semiconductors, it is now shown also to occur in a solution-processed organic polymer placed in proximity to a magnetic insulator.

    • Kazuya Ando
    • , Shun Watanabe
    •  & Henning Sirringhaus

  • Article |

    The molecular alignment and order of conjugated polymers within organic electronic devices is an important consideration for the enhancement of device performance. Now, some design rules are revealed that promote the directed alignment of the polymers and result in the fabrication of well-aligned films with highly anisotropic carrier mobilities.

    • Bong-Gi Kim
    • , Eun Jeong Jeong
    •  & Jinsang Kim

  • Article |

    Adhesive interactions between stem cells and the extracellular matrix are known to regulate stem cell differentiation, yet the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. It is now shown that fate decisions of stem cells encapsulated in covalently crosslinked hydrogels are regulated, independently of matrix mechanics and cell morphology, by the cellular tension generated from cell-induced degradation of the hydrogels.

    • Sudhir Khetan
    • , Murat Guvendiren
    •  & Jason A. Burdick

  • News & Views |

    Ceramic surfaces can be rendered hydrophobic by using polymeric modifiers, but these are not robust to harsh environments. A known family of rare-earth oxide ceramics is now found to exhibit intrinsic hydrophobicity, even after exposure to high temperatures and abrasive wear.

    • Ye Tian
    •  & Lei Jiang

  • Article |

    Although poly(vinylidene fluoride) is a well-known organic ferroelectric, its utilization in microelectronics has been hampered by the difficulty in obtaining uniform thin films. By exploiting a high-temperature deposition approach, smooth and thin films of the ferroelectric δ-phase polymorph of this material are now obtained, showing their potential for capacitors and non-volatile memories.

    • Mengyuan Li
    • , Harry J. Wondergem
    •  & Dago M. de Leeuw

  • News & Views |

    Open crystalline configurations self-assembled from colloids with sticky patches have recently been shown to be unexpectedly stable. A theory that accounts for the entropy of the colloids' thermal fluctuations now explains why.

    • Michael E. Cates

  • News & Views |

    The cytoplasm of living cells responds to deformation in much the same way as a water-filled sponge does. This behaviour, although intuitive, is connected to long-standing and unsolved fundamental questions in cell mechanics.

    • Enhua H. Zhou
    • , Fernando D. Martinez
    •  & Jeffrey J. Fredberg

  • News & Views |

    In a uniformly aligned liquid crystal, colloidal particles having a number of holes give rise to arrays of topological defects that are associated with the particles' topology.

    • Eugene Terentjev

  • Article |

    Microneedle arrays coated with a pH-sensitive releasable layer act as an intradermal delivery system for polyelectrolyte films containing bioactive molecules for DNA vaccination. The implanted films co-deliver DNA, transfection agents and adjuvants, promoting local transfection and generating immune responses that can be tuned from days to weeks.

    • Peter C. DeMuth
    • , Younjin Min
    •  & Darrell J. Irvine

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