Soft materials articles within Nature Materials

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  • Research Highlights |

    • Christian Martin

  • News & Views |

    Three-dimensional ordering in liquid-crystalline polymers is induced by the photopolymerization of a mixture of mesogens sandwiched between two patterned substrates. By incorporating an infrared-sensitive dye in the mixture, polymer films that undergo reversible shape deformations on heating are formed.

    • Gustavo Fernández

  • News & Views |

    The assembly of hundreds of thousands of semiconductor nanorods into nearly spherical or needle-like colloidal superparticles made of highly ordered supercrystalline domains can be explained by simple thermodynamic and kinetic principles.

    • Uri Banin
    •  & Amit Sitt

  • News & Views |

    The release and self-assembly of peptides from metal–organic frameworks creates surface tension differences that can fuel the cruising motion of the framework, and a microscale 'boat' wrapped around a framework particle, at the air/liquid interface.

    • Laurent Courbin
    •  & Franck Artzner

  • Article |

    Nanoplasmonic structures that can detect trace analytes via surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy typically require sophisticated nanofabrication techniques. Self-assembly of gold nanoparticles into close-packed arrays at liquid/liquid and liquid/air interfaces is now used for the detection of multi-analytes from aqueous, organic or air phases.

    • Michael P. Cecchini
    • , Vladimir A. Turek
    •  & Joshua B. Edel

  • Article |

    Various artificial cells that can store molecules in cages are designed to generate mechanical motion by dissipating energy through chemical reactions or through the reorganization of molecules. A hybrid biomimetic motor system consisting of a metal–organic framework and diphenylanaline peptides is now designed to release guest molecules in the isotropic direction via a bond-breaking framework.

    • Yasuhiro Ikezoe
    • , Gosuke Washino
    •  & Hiroshi Matsui

  • News & Views |

    Interstitials and other localized defects in flat crystals are stable, yet interstitials in curved crystals can instead fractionalize. This observation should lead to a more general understanding of how to tailor defects in both classical and quantum crystalline systems.

    • Charles Reichhardt
    •  & Cynthia Olson Reichhardt

  • Letter |

    Understanding the consequences of the interplay of defects and local curvature in crystals is far from complete despite the considerable influence that a defect has on the crystal’s local properties. It is now found that interstitials inserted in curved crystals at oil/glycerol interfaces can fractionate into two dislocations, which glide through the lattice in opposite directions until they get absorbed into existing dislocations, scars or pleats.

    • William T. M. Irvine
    • , Mark J. Bowick
    •  & Paul M. Chaikin

  • News & Views |

    The self-assembly of surfactant micelles in the formation of templated mesoporous silicas can be tuned to produce mesoporous materials with quasicrystalline ordering, proving that quasicrystals are indeed a general form of ordered but non-periodic matter.

    • Sarah H. Tolbert

  • Article |

    Flexible strain-gauge sensors, which could eventually be used in electronic skin, generally require complex device architectures. A simple and highly sensitive resistive sensor for the detection of pressure, shear and torsion with discernible strain-gauge factors has now been fabricated using two interlocked arrays of platinum-coated polymer nanofibres.

    • Changhyun Pang
    • , Gil-Yong Lee
    •  & Kahp-Yang Suh

  • Article |

    Electron transport in semiconducting polymers is usually inferior to hole transport, which is ascribed to charge trapping on defect sites. The observation of an identical electron-trap distribution in a range of materials now points to a common origin of these states that, as calculations suggest, may be related to hydrated oxygen complexes.

    • H. T. Nicolai
    • , M. Kuik
    •  & P. W. M. Blom

  • News & Views |

    Pliable gels of fibrin, a fibrous protein involved in blood clotting and linked to cancer, select cells with high in vivo aggressiveness and 'stemness' from a pool of cancer cells.

    • Jae-Won Shin
    •  & Dennis E. Discher

  • News & Views |

    A polymer hydrogel system combines chemical, thermal and mechanical responses in a reversible manner and thus exhibits homeostatic and self-regulatory behaviour similar to that of living systems.

    • Eugenia Kumacheva

  • Article |

    The sustained release of both hydrophilic and hydrophobic immunomodulators for metastatic melanoma by nanoscale liposomal polymeric gels administered intratumorally or systemically is demonstrated. It is also shown that such a co-delivery approach delays tumour growth and increases the survival of tumour-bearing mice, and that its efficacy results from the activation of both innate and adaptative immune responses.

    • Jason Park
    • , Stephen H. Wrzesinski
    •  & Tarek M. Fahmy

  • Article |

    The spatial organization of porous coordination-polymer crystals into higher-order structures is critical for their integration in heterogeneous catalysts, separation systems and electrochemical devices. A method for spatially controlling the nucleation site leading to the formation of mesoscopic architecture in porous coordination polymers, in both two and three dimensions, is now demonstrated.

    • Julien Reboul
    • , Shuhei Furukawa
    •  & Susumu Kitagawa

  • Article |

    The spreading and differentiation of stem cells is influenced by the mechanical properties—in particular by the stiffness—of the extracellular matrix. Now, experiments on epidermal stem cells cultured on substrates with a covalently attached collagen coating show that stem cells sense the stiffness of the substrate through the anchoring density of collagen fibres.

    • Britta Trappmann
    • , Julien E. Gautrot
    •  & Wilhelm T. S. Huck

  • News & Views |

    Colloidal particles interacting through DNA linkers can be designed to form solids that melt when either heated or cooled. This scenario widens the temperature window in which colloidal superlattices form by reducing kinetic bottlenecks.

    • Oleg Gang

  • Commentary |

    It is commonly presumed that the random displacements that particles undergo as a result of the thermal jiggling of the environment follow a normal, or Gaussian, distribution. However, non-Gaussian diffusion in soft materials is more prevalent than expected.

    • Bo Wang
    • , James Kuo
    •  & Steve Granick

  • Letter |

    Liquid-crystalline order can be templated in a material by refilling a photopolymerized liquid-crystal cast with the material after the non-polymerized portion has been washed out. This approach has now been used to template, in achiral liquid crystals, chiral three-dimensional blue phases with unprecedented thermal stability that are suitable for narrowband mirrorless lasing and switchable electro-optic devices.

    • F. Castles
    • , F. V. Day
    •  & H. J. Coles

  • Letter |

    The self-assembly of colloidal particles functionalized with complementary DNA strands into crystalline structures has been hampered by kinetic trapping into disordered aggregates, which effectively limits the temperature window where crystallization occurs. A strategy to design DNA-functionalized colloids with a broadened crystallization window is now proposed, and is supported by theory and simulations.

    • Stefano Angioletti-Uberti
    • , Bortolo M. Mognetti
    •  & Daan Frenkel

  • News & Views |

    A dendritic polymer consisting of inversely oriented lipid head groups on a polyvalent polyglycerol scaffold makes an effective reversible biomembrane adhesive that may find use as a tissue sealant and a drug-delivery vehicle.

    • Holger Frey

  • News & Views |

    When quenching a liquid to form a glass, order-of-magnitude changes in cooling speed have small effects on the glass's properties. It is now shown that laser-assisted vapour deposition produces nanostructured glassy polymer films with a higher glass transition temperature and lower density than conventional quenched polymer glasses.

    • Mark D Ediger
    •  & Lian Yu

  • Article |

    The headgroup of phospholipids in eukaryotic cell membranes contains phosphatidyl choline (PC). Now, branched polyglycerols decorated with the 'PC-inverse' choline phosphate (CP) are shown to behave as 'universal' biomembrane adhesives, binding electrostatically to cell membranes and to PC-containing liposomes. Binding can be reversed by exposure to PC-containing polymers. These adhesives may find use as tissue sealants and as drug-delivery vehicles.

    • Xifei Yu
    • , Zonghua Liu
    •  & Donald E. Brooks

  • Letter |

    siRNA delivery has so far been hampered by carriers that inefficiently encapsulate RNA, and by its degradation prior to cellular uptake. Now, self-assembled crystalline microsponges consisting solely of cleavable RNA strands — which are converted to siRNA only after cellular uptake — achieve, with three orders of magnitude lower concentration, the same degree of gene silencing as conventional siRNA nanocarriers.

    • Jong Bum Lee
    • , Jinkee Hong
    •  & Paula T. Hammond

  • Research Highlights |

    • Christian Martin

  • Article |

    Mesoporous colloidal gels with solid-like viscoelasticity formed from oil-in-water nanoemulsions are reported. Gelation is thermoreversible and occurs through interdroplet bridging of an end-functionalized oligomer. The gels can be photocrosslinked to encapsulate lipophilic biomolecules for their subsequent release through ultraviolet photolysis.

    • Matthew E. Helgeson
    • , Shannon E. Moran
    •  & Patrick S. Doyle

  • Article |

    The realization of ultrastable, nanostructured glassy polymer films by pulsed-laser evaporation is reported. Compared with standard poly(methyl methacrylate) glass, these polymer glasses are 40% less dense and have a 40-degree-higher glass transition temperature. Their unique properties, which are a manifestation of their globular nanostructure, should make these glasses attractive for applications where weight and stability are critical.

    • Yunlong Guo
    • , Anatoli Morozov
    •  & Rodney D. Priestley

  • News & Views |

    The ability of laser interference potentials to trap and control colloidal particles opens up a new potential area of 'toy systems' displaying real physics. A beautiful example is the study of friction between colloidal crystals and a variety of artificially created surface potentials.

    • Andrea Vanossi
    •  & Erio Tosatti

  • News & Views |

    For colloidal particles adsorbed at liquid/liquid interfaces, it is now found that the height of a particle above the interface equilibrates much more slowly than expected. Such a slow relaxation has major implications for the understanding of effective interactions between colloids at fluid interfaces.

    • Ignacio Pagonabarraga

  • Letter |

    The growth of microcrystals can be controlled by various agents such as ions, small charged molecules and polyelectrolytes. However, their use is specific to the crystallizing material. It is now shown that oppositely charged nanoparticles can act as ‘universal’ surfactants for controlling the growth and stability of microcrystals of inorganic salts and of charged organic molecules.

    • Bartlomiej Kowalczyk
    • , Kyle J. M. Bishop
    •  & Bartosz A. Grzybowski

  • Article |

    In the quest for more efficient thermoelectrics, a common strategy has been to introduce nanostructures in bulk crystals, thus reducing the thermal conductivity without affecting the electrical transport properties. A route is now presented in which the aggregation of nanoplatelets creates nanostructured materials that have higher thermoelectric efficiencies than their bulk counterparts.

    • Rutvik J. Mehta
    • , Yanliang Zhang
    •  & Ganpati Ramanath

  • News & Views |

    DNA-complexated cationic polymers with reduced charge density, high molecular weight and increased hydrophobicity show a lack of detectable cytotoxicity and efficiently deliver the apoptosis-inducing TRAIL gene to transplanted tumours in mice.

    • Enrico Mastrobattista
    •  & Wim E. Hennink

  • Letter |

    Colloidal particles adsorbed at liquid interfaces are commonly assumed to be at equilibrium, but holographic microscopy experiments now reveal that microspheres bound to a water/oil interface may take months to equilibrate. The observed ageing dynamics agree with a model of thermally activated hopping of the particle/interface contact line over nanoscale surface defects, and have implications for understanding the interactions between adsorbed colloidal particles.

    • David M. Kaz
    • , Ryan McGorty
    •  & Vinothan N. Manoharan

  • Article |

    Many synthetic polymer nanoparticles used for non-viral gene delivery contain excess cations on their surface, which makes the particles cytotoxic and the delivery of genes inefficient. Terpolymers with a low charge density, high molecular weight and increased hydrophobicity are now shown to have minimal toxicity, and to efficiently deliver the apoptosis-inducing TRAIL gene to transplanted tumours in mice.

    • Jiangbing Zhou
    • , Jie Liu
    •  & W. Mark Saltzman

  • Letter |

    Vesicles can rupture as a result of an imbalance in osmotic pressure between their inside and the exterior. Such an ‘osmotic shock’ has now been multiplexed in a coordinated fashion within an ordered material in which a minor component swells and ruptures, thus leading to a porous bicontinuous structure. Such perforated ordered materials may find applications in photonics, optoelectronics and nanofiltration.

    • Paul Zavala-Rivera
    • , Kevin Channon
    •  & Hernan Miguez

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