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Self-assembled monolayers are essential for achieving high performance solar cells by minimizing interfacial energy losses. Here, authors the develop a co-adsorb strategy with a small molecule to provide a favorable heterointerface, realizing high efficiency in p-i-n perovskite and organic devices.

The work studies the switchable excitonic response in trilayer 3R-MoS₂ and shows that the polarization switching pathway in multilayer sliding ferroelectrics results from interactions between domain walls, pinning centres and free-carrier screening.

Zhao et al. report bilateral Geiger mode avalanche in 2D graphene/InSe/Cr asymmetrical Schottky junction. The asymmetrical Schottky junction benefits to initiate impact ionization and multiplication for the injected majority carriers, leading to a multiplication factor up to 10 ^ 7 and a breakdown voltage of 1.4 V.

A microphase crosslinking strategy, leveraging aziridine-based crosslinkers, is used to render organic thermoelectric materials stretchable and elastic.

Oscillatory Min protein patterns prevent abnormal bacterial cell division. Now it is shown that Min pattern formation is resource efficient and involves wavelength-invariant oscillations that are robust to physiological changes.

Organic thermoelectric materials are transitioning from laboratory prototypes towards practical devices and could potentially surpass the performance of their inorganic counterparts near room temperature. Research priorities include probing the thermoelectric conversion limit of soft materials, designing organic thermoelectrics for precise temperature control and exploring applications beyond conventional power generation.

Employing connected coaxial waveguides on a nested meta-crystal configuration, the authors design photonic crystals with scalar-wave-like band dispersions, facilitating the search for topological phases in three-dimensional photonic crystals.

The performance of inorganic, wide-bandgap perovskite solar cells is hindered by unsuitable electron transport layers. Han et al. design an acidic magnesium-doped tin oxide quantum dot layer, improving efficiency and stability in single-junction and tandem cells.

It is shown that rhombohedral stacked MoS₂ can enable scalable photovoltaic effects induced by spontaneous polarization throughout few-micrometre-sized exfoliated flakes. This is exploited in a graphene–MoS₂-based photovoltaic device.

Sliding ferroelectricity occurs in stacks of van der Waals materials. Depending on the particular stacking, the system can host a spontaneous polarization, and under an applied electric field, polarization domain walls will propagate transverse to the electric field. Here, Yang et al use an optical approach to directly observe this sliding of domain walls in bilayer MoS₂.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly relevant to assist with oncology imaging, but diagnosing rare tumours remains challenging. Here, the authors develop an AI approach to detect rare thyroid cancer subtypes by integrating clinical knowledge with image generation based on ultrasound imaging data from large patient cohorts.

Production stability depends on both yield and harvested area. Swapping rice for climate resilient cereals such as millets, maize, and sorghum in India could reduce climate-induced losses by 11% and increase farmer profits by 11%, achievable through targeted economic incentives.

Energy decay, describing the leakage of system energy into the surrounding environment, has been used to characterize the energy interactions for individual resonators. Here, authors utilize energy decay to analyze and observe coherent energy transfer and beating phenomena in coupled micromechanical resonators.

The primary challenge in commercializing perovskite solar cells stems from the fragile and moisture-sensitive nature of perovskite materials. Here, authors propose a multi-functional asynchronous cross-linking strategy and achieve high-performance and stable devices with mere 0.30 voltage deficit.

Sn doping enables a breakthrough in p-type AgSbTe₂ for thermoelectric applications, achieving a zT of 2.5 and 12.1% device efficiency. The authors reveal an impurity band mechanism, offering a strategy for AgSbTe₂ optimization.

Thermoelectric technology directly enables both power generation and electronic cooling. Here, the authors realize high-performance SnSe crystals with promising device efficiencies by modulating crystal and band structures.

Fluid management in septic shock lacks personalized approaches, which are critical for improving patient outcomes. Here, the authors show that a proteomic signature can help identify patients who may benefit from a restrictive fluid strategy, potentially reducing hospital mortality rates.

Deep vein thrombosis after trauma (pt-DVT) patients undergo metabolic changes but a comprehensive characterization in humans is lacking. Here the authors integrate metabolome and proteome to reveal pt-DVT-related metabolic alterations and their function, and reveal potential biomarkers.

Efficient and durable photoelectrodes are essential for photoelectrochemical water splitting. Here, the authors report a gallium nitride nanowire-on-silicon wafer photoelectrode with gold nanoparticles as a cocatalyst, achieving a 10% photon-to-current efficiency and stability over 800 h.

An antiviral and antibacterial cotton textile based on a fundamentally different principle of incorporating copper ions into the cotton structure at the atomic level is fabricated with excellent air/water retainability and superior mechanical stability.

The Nernst effect of transverse thermoelectric flow is usually small in less ordered systems with low charge mobility. Here, the authors show that conjugated polymers defy this expectation with Nernst effects orders of magnitude larger than predicted.

Realization of a gyromagnetic double-zero-index metamaterial results in unconventional optical and topological properties, suitable to be used for the generation of light pulses shaped as a vortex both in time and space.

Low-dose electron microscopy has revealed nonclassical beam damage mechanisms and their descriptive models by enabling real-space visualization of radiation-induced structural dynamics in a metal-organic framework.

Here, the authors report the realization of room-temperature broadband mid-infrared detectors based on a van der Waals heterostructure with a vertical transport channel, exhibiting specific detectivity and response times comparable or superior to those of commercial cooled HgCdTe photodetectors.

Here, the authors report results from a randomized, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial of the tetravalent SARS-CoV-2 protein vaccine SCTV01E, demonstrating a favorable efficacy profile during a time when predominant viral variants were changing from BA.5 and BF.7 to XBB.

CSB deficiency is associated with induction of R-loops and genome instability, impacting long genes linked to neuronal functions in humans. Here the authors provide mechanistic understanding on how mutations in the CSB gene affects RNAPII elongation and genome instability.

Farmer livelihoods and food production are impacted by water shortages in many regions globally. These shortages can be mitigated by changing the mix of crops produced in water-scarce regions, potentially resulting in reduced irrigation needs of 28–57%.

Keratinocytes are organised into a periodic pattern in feather branching, but how this is regulated is unclear. Here, the authors show that there is a coordinated change in cell shape and adherence, mediated by Notch, FGF signalling and Rho GTPases, which in turn regulates feather branching.

Proteasome structure is extensively conserved across a broad range of organisms, so it is not surprising that inhibitors of all chemical classes tested have blocked both eukaryotic and prokaryotic proteasomes. However, certain oxathiazol-2-one compounds are now shown to kill non-replicating Mycobacterium tuberculosis and act as selective inhibitors of the M. tuberculosis proteasome while largely sparing the human homologue.

Integrating chemical-electric behaviors into optoelectronic synapses holds promise for several applications. Here, the authors report a photoelectrochemical synapse with dual-modal plasticity and chemically-regulated neuromorphic functions.

Food production stability depends on yield, and planted and harvested areas, but most research has only studied yield response to climate. This study finds that planted area and harvestable fraction contribute substantially to US crop production shocks, emphasizing their key role in food system stability.

Neddylation inhibition has been reported as a therapy for cancer. Here, the authors show that neddylation inhibition increases glutamine metabolism by stabilizing glutamine transporter ASCT2, therefore targeting ASCT2 improves the anti-cancer effect of neddylation inhibitors.

Lateral hypothalamus (LH) plays an role in drug addiction. Here, authors present evidence for disinhibited LH glutamatergic neurons by neural circuits from nucleus accumbens to contribute to context-induced expression of morphine withdrawal memory.

By integrating a metal‒oxide‒semiconductor capacitor into a two-terminal diode, a multifunctional single device can be created that operates as a tunable light-emitting diode with a built-in bias tee circuit and a detector with a reconfigurable optoelectronic logic function.

Developing stimuli-responsive bioorthogonal tetrazine ligations remains highly challenging, but a versatile approach that uses photocaged dihydrotetrazines has now been developed. Photouncaging results in the spontaneous formation of reactive tetrazines that rapidly react with dienophiles such as trans-cyclooctenes. As a demonstration, the method was used for live-cell labelling with single-cell precision and light-triggered drug delivery.

A method is reported that produces highly strong, tough and elastic 2D COF films, using a sacrificial go-between, which endows them with new properties, enhances their current applications and paves the way for new applications.

Power generation from heat to electricity can be realized by thermoelectric materials. Here, the authors improve the thermoelectric properties in PbSe enabled by multiple bands convergence and strong phonon scattering.

A genome-wide screen discovers a naturally occurring ribozyme in humans termed hovlinc, which is embedded within a long noncoding RNA and has no apparent relation to known ribozymes.