Reviews & Analysis

Granular aluminium — a superconductor with high kinetic inductance — has been used to create a superinductor for a fluxonium superconducting qubit.

Crystallized anti-inflammatory drugs have been shown to inhibit fibrosis on the surface of a number of devices over a long-term period following implantation in rodents and non-human primates.

A chemically and thermally stable metal–organic framework achieves exceptional separation of styrene from a complex mixture containing larger (ethylbenzene) and smaller (toluene and benzene) molecules.

Spatially resolved electron microscopy techniques, such as cathodoluminescence and electron energy-loss spectroscopy can provide high space, energy and time resolutions for the structural and optical characterization of materials; this Review discusses recent progress and future directions in the field of nanophotonics.

Two-dimensional cobalt oxide and cobalt nickel oxide sheets, with thicknesses around one nanometre, can form spontaneously from the transformation of three-dimensional nanocrystals in a solution-phase synthesis.

Highly stable and active Pt–Sn sub-nanometre clusters are located in sinusoidal zeolite channels, leading to improved and more stable propane dehydrogenation catalysts.

Measuring the 1s–2p splitting of direct and indirect excitons in van der Waals heterostructures allows their binding energy and dynamics to be determined.

An intermediate affinity state of integrin α_IIBβ₃ has been identified to be a key player in platelet mechanosignalling.

Controlled Pt loading on TiO₂ nanoparticles enables single-site catalysts. With this, the coordination environment and catalytic activity can be obtained, allowing extraction of structure-function information.

The chiral magnetic exchange interaction, or Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction, is found to propagate through dozens of atomic layers and also to be present in inhomogeneous amorphous alloys. These discoveries extend the parameter space available for realizing magnetic structures with chiral character.

A comprehensive chemical space of potential inorganic ternary metal nitrides has been explored by computational methods as a guideline for their experimental synthesis and discovery.

This Perspective explores correlative characterization for bringing together multiple imaging modalities with maps of local chemistry, structure and functional performance to improve our understanding and manufacturing of existing materials and facilitate data-centric materials innovation.

Quantitative atomic-scale images of electric potentials at surfaces have now been obtained with a non-contact atomic force microscope by functionalizing the tip as a quantum dot sensor.

This Review covers the basic physics of thermal emission, ways to engineer the thermal field radiated by hot objects in the far field and applications, such as thermophotovoltaics, radiative cooling, camouflage and privacy.

The polarity of charge carriers — positive or negative — is found to depend on the direction from which you look.

Over-expression of a transcriptional factor, Alx3, has been shown to revitalize the regenerative capacity of adult progenitor cells to promote enhanced stromal vascularization and formation of parenchymal dental pulp tissue in vivo.

An oxygen-free method of growing transition metal selenides leads to atomically thin films with unprecedented robustness against the most hostile conditions.

By chemically treating wood it is possible to fabricate a nanofluidic device for generating electricity from the harvesting of ubiquitous low-grade heat.