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The China Spallation Neutron Source is expected to produce its first beam in 2017. Hesheng Chen and Xun-Li Wang provide an overview of this user facility and what it means for science in China and elsewhere.
Metallurgy has been crucial to the development of China and its economy. Ke Lu, director of the Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, talks to Nature Materials about the outlook for metallurgy and materials science in China.
Graphene is extensively researched in China. Xiaoyue Xiao, Yichun Li and Zhaoping Liu illustrate how the China Innovation Alliance of the Graphene Industry aims to harness this for commercial opportunities.
Computational materials science has grown in China in recent times. Hai-Qing Lin gives an overview of China's efforts towards a Materials Genome Initiative and the challenges faced.
Biomedical applications for graphene are attracting interest from academics and industrial partners aiming to develop next-generation medical devices and therapies.
Long commercialization times, high capital costs and sustained uncertainty deter investment in innovation for advanced materials. With appropriate strategies, technology and market uncertainties can be reduced, and the commercialization of advanced materials accelerated.
Basic hurdles in materials modelling, such as access to experimental raw data, thwart fast progress. Governmental and grass-roots initiatives have stepped up to help overcome current limitations.
Angelos Michaelides, Professor in Theoretical Chemistry at University College London (UCL) and co-director of the Thomas Young Centre (TYC), explains to Nature Materials the challenges in materials modelling and the objectives of the TYC.
Nucleic acid memory has a retention time far exceeding electronic memory. As an alternative storage media, DNA surpasses the information density and energy of operation offered by flash memory.
This month marks ten years since the general principles of DNA origami were established, a technique that changed the field of DNA nanotechnology and that promises new physical and biomedical applications.
In the last few years, the advent of metal halide perovskite solar cells has revolutionized the prospects of next-generation photovoltaics. As this technology is maturing at an exceptional rate, research on its environmental impact is becoming increasingly relevant.
