Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Repetitive electrical pulse stimulation of blue-phase liquid crystals promotes their reconfiguration into stable non-cubic structures with promising electro-optical responses for display technologies.
Conventional diffraction cannot determine short-range order at concentrations that disrupt ionic mobility. Real-space transforms of single-crystal diffuse scattering now allow us to measure ionic correlation length scales in sodium-intercalated V2O5.
Photoelectrochemical production of syngas from water and CO2 is technologically attractive but overpotentials, low selectivity and catalyst cost remain challenging. Tunable syngas production integrating cobalt porphyrin catalysts with perovskite and BiVO4 photoabsorbers is now shown.
An anticancer agent, olsalazine, conjugated to a cell-penetrating peptide has been synthesized and shows the ability to self-assemble intracellularly by the tumour-associated enzyme furin, with the potential for tumour therapy and chemical exchange saturation transfer magnetic resonance imaging in vivo.
A structural investigation on the formation of 3D superlattices of colloidal PbSe quantum dots reveals a topotactic transition from the self-assembled phase of ligand-capped quantum dots to the epitaxially fused phase typical of conductive solids.
Non-contact dissipation measurements reveal an interplay between electronic states and nanomechanics in Bi2Te3, a canonical topological insulator with protected metallic surface states.
Metal–organic framework capture materials could reduce the environmental impact of SO2 emissions but can have limited stability and poor reversibility. Here, a metal–organic framework with open Cu(ii) sites with fully reversible SO2 uptake of 17.5 mmol g−1 under ambient conditions is reported.
By applying a pressure of 2.8 GPa using a diamond anvil cell, a topological phase transition is found to occur in Cr-doped PbSe. This enables a thermoelectric figure of merit ZT of 1.7 at room temperature.
A stroboscopic scattering microscopy approach is developed to image the evolution of carrier distributions in three dimensions and with sub-nanosecond resolution while the carriers propagate in organic and inorganic films.
Although nanocatalysts forming selective contacts are crucial in photoelectrochemistry, the underlying nanoscale interfaces are poorly understood. Using a n-Si/Ni photoanode and potential-sensing AFM, interfacial electron-transfer processes and photovoltage are measured.
Reducing Pt content in cathodes for proton exchange membrane fuel cells is crucial to lower costs but results in high voltage losses. A Pt catalyst/support design that substantially reduces local oxygen-related mass transport resistance is reported.
It is believed that the strengthening of metals by formation of nanoscale grains or coherent twin boundaries is limited to a maximum strength. Here, using experiment and theory, it is shown that the fabrication of nanocrystalline-nanotwinned Ag with trace Cu results in a hardness beyond this limit.
An investigation on Lewis acids reveals a mechanism for p-type doping of semiconducting polymers based on the formation of water–Lewis acid complexes, protonation of the polymer and electron transfer between neutral and charged chain segments.
Electrochromic displays that are stable in the coloured state for up to 52 h with no applied voltage are fabricated using molecules hosting concerted intramolecular proton-coupled electron transfer processes.
Metal fluoride conversion cathodes are promising for low-cost Li-ion batteries but suffer from poor performance at elevated temperatures. By replacing organic electrolytes with solid polymer electrolytes, long-cycle stability at 50 °C with high-capacity FeF2 cathodes is demonstrated.
Addition of MXenes in the halide perovskite film, in the electron transport layer and at the interface between these layers is shown to enhance the efficiency of and reduce hysteresis in perovskite solar cells.
A very large spin-to-charge conversion arising from a combination of the Rashba effect and topologically non-trivial states is realized at the interface of strontium titanate and aluminium, with implications for the role of topology in memory and transistor designs.
Triplet excited states related to partial molecular structures are shown to mediate spin-flip between lowest singlet and triplet excited states in multiple donor–acceptor charge-transfer-type organic molecules.