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The evolution of microcrack damage in materials under hostile thermal and mechanical conditions has now been imaged in three dimensions by real-time in situ X-ray microtomography.
Measurements of heat transport across polished nanoscale contacts formed between the tip of a scanning thermal microscope and a surface support the notion that their true contact area consists of discrete atomic contact points.
The magnetocaloric effect could form the basis for efficient refrigeration technologies. The finding that large and reversible magnetocaloric effects can be induced through a strain-mediated feedback mechanism may expand the range of available magnetocaloric materials.
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.
Excitation of organic donor–acceptor systems with high-energy light can produce hot charge-transfer states that are delocalized across the heterojunction and readily dissociate. Two studies now reveal the dynamics of this process and pave the way towards unravelling the details of the molecular landscape that favours fast photocarrier generation.
The spiking phenomena associated with neural activity are characterized by an impressive degree of efficiency. The fabrication of a neuristor consisting of nanoscale components represents a step towards implementing such devices in integrated circuit applications.
Friction classically decreases with decreasing load. Nanoscale measurements on chemically modified graphite now show an opposite trend related to local deformation, which could serve as a probe for determining the exfoliation energy of layered materials.
A magnetic on/off switch for cell-death signalling in cancer cells is developed using antibodies conjugated to magnetic nanoparticles. The control of cell death in in vivo systems is demonstrated by a tell-tale morphological change within the zebrafish.
The surface properties of topological insulators are protected by time-reversal symmetry. Now, the finding of a topological crystalline insulator with metallic boundary states protected by lattice symmetries promises novel functionality.
Stacked bilayers can exhibit columnar alignment of phase-separated domains that propagates across hundreds of layers. The serial coupling of functionality that may result from such a long-range arrangement should lead to new applications in photonics and sensing.
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.
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.
When cooled in water from high temperature, superhydrophobic surfaces stabilize the vapour layer on them, thus avoiding the typical vapour explosions associated with the nucleation of bubbles.
An algorithm that allows the atomic-scale reconstruction of the three-dimensional structure of nanoparticles from only four individual images provides an important step towards fast, in situ electron tomography.
Toxic metal cations in environmental samples can be detected with ultrahigh sensitivity through measurements of the tunnelling current across crosslinked films of nanoparticles decorated with striped monolayers of organic ligands.
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.