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Toroidic phases and their phase transitions are notoriously hard to study in natural materials. Now, a direct-kagome spin ice provides access to two low-temperature toroidal phases, ferrotoroidicity and paratoroidicity, as well as to toroidic phase transitions.
Biobased materials are of interest for many applications. Here the authors report insect-derived peptides that self-assemble into hollow nanocapsules through a gradient-driven, single-step, solvent exchange process, enabling the encapsulation of diverse cargoes with potential for drug delivery applications.
A simple manipulation of an electrolyte’s glass transition enables nanoresolved electrochemical ion implantation doping in a variety of polymeric semiconductors.
Acid-etching-driven nanosurface reconstruction of perovskite quantum-dot pure-red LEDs facilitates a peak external quantum efficiency of 28.5% and a half-lifetime of 30 h at 100 cd m−2 luminance, enabling highly efficient solution-processed active-matrix perovskite displays.
Plasmonic tunnel junctions integrated with a monolayer semiconductor are found to emit photons with energies exceeding the input electrical potential. This peculiar phenomenon is ascribed to being triggered by inelastic electron tunnelling dipoles inducing optically forbidden transitions in the carrier injection electrode.
Antimicrobial resistance is becoming more prevalent. Here the authors use multimodal nanoparticles to modulate the infected microenvironment, recruit neutrophils and alleviate hypoxia to restore neutrophil function, demonstrating therapeutic efficacy against MRSA infections in mice.
A single-walled carbon nanotube spring stores three times more mechanical energy than a lithium-ion battery, while offering wide temperature stability and posing no explosion risk.
Engineering the tunability of protein assembly in response to pH changes within a narrow range is challenging. Here the authors report the de novo computational design of pH-responsive protein filaments that exhibit rapid, precise, tunable and reversible assembly and disassembly triggered by small pH changes.
An experimental demonstration of how destructive quantum interference effects can increase the performance of single-molecule field-effect transistors to reach levels similar to those of nanoelectronic transistors.
Operando transmission electron microscopy imaging reveals that modifying interlayer rotations alters both the spatial arrangement and switching dynamics of polar domains in artificially stacked trilayers of WSe2.
Understanding how cells process nanoparticles is crucial to improve nanomedicine efficacy. Here a genome-wide screening is used to discover proteins that are involved in silica nanoparticle accumulation by cells and shows that different apolipoprotein receptors and proteoglycans mediate their internalization.
Tumour cell behaviour is an underdeveloped target for cancer intervention. Here the authors report on a spatiotemporal interaction between tumour cells and osteoclasts in initial bone metastases and propose a behaviour-targeting therapy with an in situ physical killing strategy.
The spacing of ligands presented to cells can have a huge impact on cellular responses. DNA origami is used to block structures to control the distribution of Toll-like receptor ligands and optimize presentation in the activation of dendritic cells in cancer immunotherapy.
There is interest in STING for immunotherapy, but it suffers from adverse proinflammatory effects. Here, the authors report on a non-membrane-associated polymeric universal STING mimic which triggers pathways involved in tumour control over proinflammatory pathways, demonstrating application in vivo.
The characterization and tuning of free radicals at the single molecule level is a challenging endeavour. Here electrical conductance measurements of a single molecule sandwiched between nanogapped graphene electrodes via covalent amide bonds reveal the conversion between closed-shell and open-shell form with temperature, electric and magnetic field in real time.
Tellurite molybdenum quaternary oxides, a family of van der Waals materials, show slow group velocity and long lifetimes with promising implications for tunable low-loss anisotropic polaritonics.
In contrast to textbook expectations, experimental findings show that, in certain situations, like-charged particles may either repel or attract each other depending on the sign of their charge and on the solvent.