Articles in 2015

Molecular simulations suggest that nanodroplets of water and other liquids can be carried by thermally activated propagating ripples in graphene.

A synthetic fibrous material with tunable mechanics and architecture allows researchers to reveal that cells use fibre recruitment to probe and respond to the mechanics of fibrillar matrices.

A super-Förster energy-transfer regime, where coherent and incoherent energy transport processes enhance the diffusion of excitons, is observed at room temperature by tuning the distance between the chromophores’ binding sites in a virus scaffold.

Multiscale molecular dynamics indicate that the crystallization of shock-compressed fused silica and quartz occurs within a few nanoseconds and is mediated by diffusion.

Poly(vinylidene fluoride) exhibits a negative longitudinal piezoelectric coefficient. In situ X-ray diffraction measurements suggest that this effect is dependent on electromechanical coupling between the intermixed crystalline lamellae and amorphous regions.

An ultra-flexible cylindrical mesh embedding multiple electrodes bending away from the device is used to probe rodents’ neural activity in vivo. This geometry improves the neuron–probe contact and reduces tissue response in chronic applications.

It is shown that the large thermoelectric capability of CoSb₃ skutterudite can be associated with a secondary conduction band with high valley degeneracy, which can converge with the light conduction band at high temperatures.

The asymmetric organic/vacuum interface created during the vacuum deposition of an amorphous organic layer doped with heteroleptic phosphors controls the orientation of the dopant molecules, which improves the outcoupling efficiency of organic LEDs.

Porous solids comprising a self-entangled coiled polymer fibre or metal wire reversibly increase their volume when either stretched or compressed in an axial direction, possibly providing a new type of mechanical behaviour for tuning functional properties.

Graphene/hBN moiré superlattices exhibit a new set of Dirac mini-bands, whose interband transitions—together with free electrons in the ordinary Dirac bands—modify the nature of the plasmons, as revealed by infrared near-field microscopy.

A single, self-coiled wire is shown to exhibit a Poisson function ranging from above 1 in compression to below 0 in tension. Such material architectures may offer new functionalities in mechanical devices.

Direct visualization of the motion of long-lived charge-transfer states in an organic blend reveals that bound electron–hole pairs stretch and contract, and diffuse more than 10 nm before they dissociate or recombine.

A water-resistant sunblock based on bioadhesive nanoparticles encapsulating a model ultraviolet filter at low concentrations adheres to the stratum corneum without subsequent intra-epidermal or follicular penetration.