Articles in 2019

Anticancer drugs such as Taxol can affect microtubule dynamics and organization in cells. Direct visualization of the action of such drugs has shown that they can trigger local and cooperative changes in microtubule lattice and induce formation of stable microtubule regions that promote rescues.

A prototypical kagome metal with magnetic and topological properties is identified.

Ion-selective membranes are widely used for water purification and electrochemical energy devices but designing their pore architectures is challenging. Membranes with narrow channels and hydrophilic functionality are shown to exhibit salt ions transport and selectivity towards small organic molecules.

Orthogonal self-assembly of amphiphilic diblock copolymers and polyoxometallates followed by calcination allows the formation of cross-stacked multilayer 3D arrays of tungsten oxide nanowires.

The ultrafast response of a pyroelectric sensor with near-infrared responsivity is demonstrated by combining a pyroelectric thermal detector with wavelength-selective nanoparticle absorbers.

Polymer precipitation under turbulent flow is used for the high-throughput synthesis of soft microparticles with fractal coronas that display significant adhesive properties.

Inducing a topological phase transition by applying pressure is shown to be a successful strategy for improving the performance of thermoelectric materials.

By using solid polymer electrolytes, insight into the local control of iron fluoride conversion based positive electrodes for stable next-generation lithium and Li-ion batteries is obtained.

Nanofibre mimetic substrates reveal the presence of integrin nanoclusters bridged by unliganded receptors during early cell–matrix adhesion.

Topological corner states characteristic to second-order topological phases are observed on the surface of a solid using a scanning tunnelling microscope. This observation opens a new connection between higher-order topological physics and surface science.

The awarding of this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of lithium-ion batteries was long overdue for a technology that is already providing a vital component of the energy economy.

The atomic displacements that generate ferroelectricity in materials commonly fit a double-well potential energy surface. Here, ferroelectricity in two-dimensional CuInP₂S₆ is shown to fit a quadruple well due to the van der Waals gap between layers of this material.

Platinum catalysts are widely used for oxygen reduction reactions in electrochemical devices but scalability is restricted by scarcity, cost and vulnerability to poisoning. Zirconium nitride nanoparticles now exhibit an oxygen reduction performance with similar activity to that of Pt on carbon.

The bending stiffness of few-layer graphene is shown to decrease significantly with the bending angle due to shear and slip between the atomic layers, which culminate in superlubric behaviour as the bending angle further increases.