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Using fluorinated elastomers in the fabrication of soft neural probes is shown to enhance spatiotemporal recording capability at single-neuron resolution within the central nervous system of rodents. Other soft encapsulation materials could be similarly engineered for high-resolution, long-lasting bioelectronics.
Catalytic metals dissolved in liquid gallium remain atomically dispersed and dynamically active. The configurational dynamics of the metal atoms enables them to adopt a specific configurational alignment with the reactants to facilitate selective propylene synthesis from two different hydrocarbon feedstocks.
A DNA origami nanoturbine is designed as a rotary motor that draws power from an ion gradient or electrical potential across a solid-state nanopore. Single-molecule experiments demonstrate that the turbine can drive a DNA bundle into sustained unidirectional rotation, with the preferred rotation direction set by the chirality of the turbine.
Nanoscale inhomogeneity is a major barrier to achieving high nonlinear efficiency in nanophotonic lithium-niobate waveguides. Using adapted poling in the waveguide — to circumvent the inhomogeneity and restore ideal phase matching — is shown to break through this efficiency limit.
Two-photon lithography has advantages for precise additive manufacturing at the nanoscale, but its printing speed is currently too slow for large-scale practical applications. A sensitive photoresist based on zirconium oxide hybrid nanoparticles is shown to increase the linear printing speed of two-photon lithography up to the order of metres per second.
Drawing inspiration from classical semiconductor technology, a strategy to address many quantum dots through a small number of control lines is presented. The two-dimensional array consisting of 16 germanium quantum dots can be tuned in the few-hole regime with odd charge fillings and individually addressable tunnel couplings.
Self-assembled single vacancies in a 2D transition metal dichalcogenide are used to fabricate atomically precise quantum antidots. The resulting antidots have tunable quantum hole states, which are robust to oxygen substitutional doping, and could have applications in quantum information and photocatalysis technologies.
Monolayer MoS2, a two-dimensional semiconductor, was directly synthesized on polymer and ultrathin-glass substrates at 150 °C using a metal–organic chemical vapour deposition strategy. The high-quality MoS2 films enabled the construction of various integrated circuits on flexible substrates without the need for an additional transfer process.
Neuromorphic photodetectors are typically volatile and/or complex with multiple gates, leading to reduced energy efficiency for intelligent perception applications. Two-terminal MoS2 photodetectors have now been developed in which electrically driving the migration of sulfur vacancies enables dynamic modulation of the Schottky barriers and the realization of reconfigurable and non-volatile responsivities.
Intercellular calcium waves (ICW) are mechanosensitive signalling phenomena that coordinate cellular responses in key physiological processes. The force applied by light-activated molecular machines is shown to remotely stimulate ICW. The ICW induced by these molecular machines can be exploited to regulate downstream functions, such as muscle contraction, in vitro and in vivo.
Certain proteins have been optimized over millennia to exhibit shock-absorbing capabilities. To harness these capabilities, synthetic biology was used to incorporate the mechanosensitive protein talin into a hydrogel. The resulting talin shock-absorbing material (TSAM) retains the mechanical properties of talin and can absorb the impact of, as well as capture, supersonic projectiles.
An automated system that couples microfluidics with plasmonic hot electron injection to accelerate colorimetric detection of DNA and RNA amplification is shown to achieve 95% detection accuracy in human saliva samples. This technique uses different amplification assays for pathogen identification and can differentiate between viral variants and subtypes.
A floatable photocatalytic platform made from a porous elastomer–hydrogel nanocomposite has been developed for converting solar energy into hydrogen fuel. This platform enables efficient light delivery, a facile supply of reactant and rapid product separation to achieve high hydrogen-evolution rates. Large-scale and seawater experiments indicate the potential for scale-up and practical application.
Biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA) microplastics are shown to undergo enzymatic hydrolysis by lipases found in the human gut to generate PLA oligomers, which self-aggregate to form nanoplastic particles. The oligomers and their nanoparticles bioaccumulated in multiple organs of a mouse model and caused acute intestinal inflammation.
