Featured
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Colloidal alloys with preassembled clusters and spheres
Complex colloidal crystal structures can be obtained by a combination of preassembled units and DNA-mediated interactions. This enables, for instance, the generation of a MgCu2 structure with interpenetrating diamond and pyrochlore sublattices.
- Étienne Ducrot
- , Mingxin He
- & David J. Pine
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News & Views |
Battery-like artificial synapses
Borrowing the operating principles of a battery, a three-terminal organic switch has been developed on a flexible plastic substrate. The device consumes very little power and can be used as an artificial synapse for brain-inspired computing.
- J. Joshua Yang
- & Qiangfei Xia
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Letter |
A non-volatile organic electrochemical device as a low-voltage artificial synapse for neuromorphic computing
A neuromorphic device based on the stable electrochemical fine-tuning of the conductivity of an organic ionic/electronic conductor is realized. These devices show high linearity, low noise and extremely low switching voltage.
- Yoeri van de Burgt
- , Ewout Lubberman
- & Alberto Salleo
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Progress |
Materials for next-generation molecularly selective synthetic membranes
Liquid and gas purification using membrane materials permits a wide range of critical industrial processes, and here it is discussed how they might achieve molecular selectivity.
- William J. Koros
- & Chen Zhang
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Article |
Two-dimensional assemblies from crystallizable homopolymers with charged termini
Uniform, hierarchical 2D nanostructures with controlled shapes can be prepared from homopolymers with charged end-groups using a crystallization-driven assembly process.
- Xiaoming He
- , Ming-Siao Hsiao
- & Ian Manners
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News & Views |
Cracks by design
Stretching elastic membranes over curved substrates can be used to guide and control crack paths.
- Ken Kamrin
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Article |
Biredox ionic liquids with solid-like redox density in the liquid state for high-energy supercapacitors
Electrochemical storage devices in the liquid state are promising but they suffer from low redox species density. An approach based on biredox ionic liquids now demonstrates bulk-like redox density compatible with supercapacitor applications.
- Eléonore Mourad
- , Laura Coustan
- & Olivier Fontaine
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News & Views |
One model to rule them all
A single transport function has been developed to describe the temperature and energy dependence of charge transport in insulating, semiconducting and metallic polymers.
- Jeffrey J. Urban
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Article |
Charge-transport model for conducting polymers
A generalized charge-transport model is reported that is able to describe the thermopower–conductivity relation at various temperatures in several semiconducting polymers, suggesting a rethinking of conduction mechanisms in these materials.
- Stephen Dongmin Kang
- & G. Jeffrey Snyder
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Letter |
Deterministic encapsulation of single cells in thin tunable microgels for niche modelling and therapeutic delivery
Single cells encapsulated in a layer of alginate and injected intravenously delay clearance kinetics and sustain donor-derived soluble factors in vivo.
- Angelo S. Mao
- , Jae-Won Shin
- & David J. Mooney
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News & Views |
Stresses come to light
Confocal microscopy and computational analysis, now used for measuring microscale stresses in colloidal crystals, could be developed for investigation of amorphous materials, crystal melting, and mechanical properties of tissues.
- Mark Bowick
- & Paul Chaikin
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News & Views |
Controlled collective motions
Self-propelled Janus particles with externally regulated anisotropic interactions can be made to swarm, cluster and form slithering chains.
- Roberto Di Leonardo
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News & Views |
High-throughput virtual screening
Computer networks, trained with data from delayed-fluorescence materials that have been successfully used in organic light-emitting diodes, facilitate the high-speed prediction of good emitters for display and lighting applications.
- Shuzo Hirata
- & Katsuyuki Shizu
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Article |
Porous microwells for geometry-selective, large-scale microparticle arrays
A porous microwell platform that generates large-scale arrays of microparticles with varying shape, size and modulus with high specificity shows applicability in anti-counterfeiting and cell-screening applications.
- Jae Jung Kim
- , Ki Wan Bong
- & Patrick S. Doyle
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Letter |
In situ study of the formation mechanism of two-dimensional superlattices from PbSe nanocrystals
A real-time study of the growth of two-dimensional nanocrystal superlattices with square periodicity shows the formation mechanism leading to the oriented attachment of the nanocrystals.
- Jaco J. Geuchies
- , Carlo van Overbeek
- & Daniel Vanmaekelbergh
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Article |
Intrusion rheology in grains and other flowable materials
Experiments and simulations show that resistive forces on surfaces moving through granular matter or cohesive media arise as a consequence of local frictional yielding.
- Hesam Askari
- & Ken Kamrin
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Article |
Anomalous phonon scattering and elastic correlations in amorphous solids
Studies of the phonon damping mechanism in glasses reveal scaling with the wavevector k which is different from the traditionally assumed Rayleigh scattering. These findings are related to long-range correlations in the local stress.
- Simon Gelin
- , Hajime Tanaka
- & Anaël Lemaître
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Letter |
Fracture in sheets draped on curved surfaces
Curvature in elastic sheets can be used to control material failure and guide the paths of cracks.
- Noah P. Mitchell
- , Vinzenz Koning
- & William T. M. Irvine
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Letter |
Measuring nonlinear stresses generated by defects in 3D colloidal crystals
Nonlinear stresses surrounding defect cores in three-dimensional colloidal crystals are experimentally determined at the single-particle level.
- Neil Y. C. Lin
- , Matthew Bierbaum
- & Itai Cohen
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Letter |
An autonomous actuator driven by fluctuations in ambient humidity
Films based on π-stacked carbon nitride polymers are shown to bend rapidly and jump up to 10,000 times their thickness as a result of minimal variations—induced by changes in the ambient humidity or temperature—of absorbed water.
- Hiroki Arazoe
- , Daigo Miyajima
- & Takuzo Aida
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Letter |
Reconfiguring active particles by electrostatic imbalance
Metal–dielectric Janus colloids subjected to perpendicular a.c. electric fields can self-organize into swarms, chains, clusters and isotropic gases, depending on the frequency of the field.
- Jing Yan
- , Ming Han
- & Steve Granick
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News & Views |
Growing gold nanoprisms with light
An adsorbed polymer directs the photochemical growth of colloidal Au single-crystal nanoprisms following visible metal excitation.
- Louis Brus
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News & Views |
Frustrated shapes
Geometric frustration governs shape selection in fibrous materials.
- Eran Sharon
- & Hillel Aharoni
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News & Views |
Strong absorption in stiff polymers
Greater rigidity of conjugated polymer backbones increases their light-harvesting ability, making them better performers in solar-cell applications.
- John Grey
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Article |
Understanding soft glassy materials using an energy landscape approach
Results from a model soap foam consisting of compressible spherical bubbles suggest that soft glassy rheology results from emergent fractal geometry in the foam’s energy landscape.
- Hyun Joo Hwang
- , Robert A. Riggleman
- & John C. Crocker
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Article |
Polymer nanofilms with enhanced microporosity by interfacial polymerization
Here it is shown how ultrathin and microporous polymer membranes, fabricated using sterically contorted monomers, can achieve enhanced performance for solvent-based separations.
- Maria F. Jimenez-Solomon
- , Qilei Song
- & Andrew G. Livingston
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News & Views |
Efficiency through dilution
The detrimental effects of charge trapping in organic semiconductors can be minimized by diluting the electroactive polymer in an insulating host.
- Jonathan Rivnay
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Article |
Inverse spin Hall effect from pulsed spin current in organic semiconductors with tunable spin–orbit coupling
A new pulsed ferromagnetic resonance method allows efficient spin injection and detection at room temperature through the inverse spin Hall effect, even in organic semiconductors with weak spin–orbit coupling such as C60.
- Dali Sun
- , Kipp J. van Schooten
- & Z. Valy Vardeny
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News & Views |
Echoes from diffusion
Coherent scattering of helium wave packets captures molecular motion with nanometre and picosecond resolution.
- Florian Klappenberger
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News & Views |
Shaped after print
A plant-inspired approach can be used to print hydrogels that dynamically change shape on immersion in water in order to yield prescribed complex structures.
- Michael D. Dickey
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News & Views |
Bumps lead the way
Surfaces with slippery asymmetric bumps significantly increase water droplet condensation and shedding.
- Manu Prakash
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News & Views |
Hand-twisting light
Macroscopic deformation can induce chirality in initially achiral nanoparticle composites, and reversibly modulate their chiroptical properties.
- Daeyeon Lee
- & Sang Eon Han
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Letter |
Morphology selection via geometric frustration in chiral filament bundles
Geometric frustration selects the equilibrium morphology of cohesive bundles of chiral filaments by controlling the relative costs of filament bending and the straining of the cohesive bonds.
- Douglas M. Hall
- , Isaac R. Bruss
- & Gregory M. Grason
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News & Views |
A 3D boost
Biophysical factors in an optimized three-dimensional microenvironment enhance the reprogramming efficiency of human somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells when compared to traditional cell-culture substrates.
- Oscar J. Abilez
- & Joseph C. Wu
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Article |
Lattice engineering through nanoparticle–DNA frameworks
Designed DNA-based polyhedral frames, whose vertices are connected to nanoparticles, facilitate their self-assembly into predetermined crystalline and open three-dimensional lattices.
- Ye Tian
- , Yugang Zhang
- & Oleg Gang
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Article |
Programming curvature using origami tessellations
Elementary geometric constructions and constrained optimization algorithms can be used to fit origami tessellations to any curved surface.
- Levi H. Dudte
- , Etienne Vouga
- & L. Mahadevan
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Letter |
Biomimetic 4D printing
Printed hydrogel composites with plant-inspired architectures dynamically change shape on immersion in water to yield prescribed complex morphologies.
- A. Sydney Gladman
- , Elisabetta A. Matsumoto
- & Jennifer A. Lewis
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Letter |
Underwater contact adhesion and microarchitecture in polyelectrolyte complexes actuated by solvent exchange
Polyelectrolyte complexation triggered by solvent exchange enables robust underwater contact adhesion for plastics, glasses, metals and other surfaces.
- Qiang Zhao
- , Dong Woog Lee
- & J. Herbert Waite
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Article |
Defined three-dimensional microenvironments boost induction of pluripotency
The confinement imposed by the three-dimensional microenvironment promotes the induction of pluripotency in somatic cells through an accelerated mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition and increased epigenetic remodelling.
- Massimiliano Caiazzo
- , Yuya Okawa
- & Matthias P. Lutolf
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News & Views |
Material defect lines
Topological defects in liquid crystals guide the self-assembly of molecular amphiphiles.
- Francesca Serra
- & Shu Yang
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Article |
Hydrogels with tunable stress relaxation regulate stem cell fate and activity
Hydrogels with faster stress relaxation enhance the spreading, proliferation, and osteogenic differentiation of embedded mesenchymal stem cells.
- Ovijit Chaudhuri
- , Luo Gu
- & David J. Mooney
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Letter |
Solvent-free, supersoft and superelastic bottlebrush melts and networks
Solvent-free, supersoft and superelastic polymer melts and networks made from bottlebrush macromolecules can display low modulus, high strain at break, and extraordinary elasticity.
- William F. M. Daniel
- , Joanna Burdyńska
- & Sergei S. Sheiko
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Article |
A three-dimensional engineered tumour for spatial snapshot analysis of cell metabolism and phenotype in hypoxic gradients
An engineered tumour model based on a rolling scaffold–tumour composite strip that can be rapidly disassembled for snapshot analyses preserves cell-to-cell interactions and enables spatial mapping of cell metabolism and cell phenotype.
- Darren Rodenhizer
- , Edoardo Gaude
- & Alison P. McGuigan
Nanoscale capillary freezing of ionic liquids confined between metallic interfaces and the role of electronic screening
A recipe for growth
Close to the edge
From pillar to post
A new design course
Patterned by polymers