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The performance of single-crystal perovskite solar cells has been limited by interfacial loss at the perovskite/charge transport layer. Here, authors fabricate an asymmetric substrate stack through space-confined inverse temperature crystallization, achieving maximum device efficiency of 24.32%.

The performance of inverted perovskite solar cells has been limited by non-radiative recombination at the perovskite surfaces. Here, authors employ phosphonic acids and piperazinium chloride for homogeneous passivation, achieving certified efficiency of 28.9% for 60 cm² perovskite-silicon tandems.

Infrared-light-induced carrier transfer is a key technology for ‘invisible’ optical devices, but making materials with the right properties remains a challenge. Here, the authors fabricate a clear and colourless material which converts infrared light to an electrical signal or energy based on a localized surface plasmon resonance, with implications for the development of invisible optical devices.

Plasmonic systems are a useful platform for many nanoscale applications, and plasmonic tweezers offer a method for trapping and manipulating biological particles. Roxworthy et al. study fluid convection in a nanoantenna optical trapping system and characterise the heat flow due to optical absorption.

Wiring photosynthetic biomachineries to electrodes is promising for sustainable bio-electricity and fuel generation, but designing such interfaces is challenging. Aerosol jet printing is now used to generate hierarchical pillar array electrodes using indium tin oxide nanoparticles for high-performance semi-artificial photosynthesis.

Achieving deep blue emission and high practical efficiency in organic light-emitting devices remains a considerable challenge. Here, the authors report late-stage double borylation of boron/nitrogen based multi-resonance frameworks, achieving maximum efficiency of over 32% in stable devices.

An optical slab waveguide with highly programmable nonlinear functionality is described, enabling the demonstration of versatile control over broadband second-harmonic generation across the spectral, spatial and spatio-spectral domains.

Improving the manufacturability of perovskite solar cells is key to their deployment. Zheng et al. report a one-step deposition of the hole-selective and absorber layers that addresses wettability issues and simplifies the fabrication process.

Retinitis pigmentosa leads to blindness and treatments are limited. Here, the authors report injectable donor-acceptor polymers and graphene oxide that restore visual response and perception in rodent and pig models.

Here, the authors present an experimental demonstration of adiabatic frequency conversion using the concept of time boundary by exploiting the properties of an ITO film operating near its epsilon-near-zero frequency. They demonstrate a large and controllable shift up to 14.9 THz.

A dual interfacial hydrogen-bond passivation strategy and a hybrid copper–iodide are used to fabricate deep-blue light-emitting diodes with excellent external quantum efficiency and lifetime.

The poor stability of narrow bandgap lead-tin perovskites hinders their implementation in multi junction cells. Here, the authors reveal that device performance degradation is caused by an increase in either mobile ion or background hole density, depending on the hole transport material used.

Dioxythiophene-based polymers effectively convert electric potential into optical readouts. Here, the authors used such polymers to optically record bioelectric signals with microvolt sensitivity and sub-millisecond temporal resolution, highlighting their potential in optical bioelectronics.

Carbonic anhydrase enzymatically catalyses CO₂ hydration, and its effect on enzymatic and heterogeneous CO₂ reduction has now been studied. Through the co-immobilization of carbonic anhydrase, it has been shown that faster CO₂ hydration kinetics are beneficial for enzymatic catalysis (using formate dehydrogenase) but detrimental for heterogeneous catalysts, such as gold.

The performance of n-i-p perovskite-organic tandem solar cells is hampered by non-ideal interconnection layers. This study reports an optimized metal-based interconnection stack featuring high transparency and efficient carrier recombination, achieving 25.34% efficiency and improved stability in tandems.

Catalytically oxidizing water to produce oxygen is so challenging that even the enzyme that performs the task in nature must be regenerated every 30 mins. Now, stable oxygen-evolving anodes have been made by tethering a polyoxometalate catalyst to a conducting bed of carbon nanotubes.

Flexible electronic devices are widely considered to have significant potential for a range of applications. Here the authors present a bendable and transparent memory based on graphene electrical contacts and silica as the memory element.

The growth of wide-bandgap perovskites remains insufficiently controlled under hybrid deposition. Here, the authors introduce n-propylamine hydrochloride for regulating the oriented crystal growth, achieving maximum efficiency of 26.46% for two-terminal perovskite/organic tandem solar cells.

Low bandgap tin–lead perovskites are crucial to making efficient all-perovskite tandem solar cells but have so far shown poor stability. By removing the hole transport layer and improving film morphology, Prasanna et al. demonstrate a low-gap perovskite solar cell that is stable for 1,000 h under heat, light and atmospheric conditions.

Molecular catalysts can exhibit high activity, but their practical application may be limited by solubility and stability issues. Here, the authors report stable, direct binding of an iridium molecular catalyst to conductive oxide surfaces and demonstrate its activity for electrochemical water oxidation.

Lead halide perovskites excel in optical and electronic properties, drawing significant attention in solar fuel studies. Here, the authors report a stable FAPbBr₃ photoanode optimized for water oxidation to achieve a low onset potential and high applied bias photon-to-current efficiency.

Indium tin oxide (ITO) is widely used as a transparent conducting coating, but it has been difficult to combine electrical conductivity with good optical properties in the visible region. Researchers have now created layers of ITO nanowires that show optimum electronic and optical properties, and have demonstrated their use as fully transparent top contacts for light-emitting devices.

Metal-based smart windows allow for light and heat transmission control but suffer from poor metal ion diffusion over large areas. Here, the authors demonstrate a 100 cm² window that is uniformly switchable from clear to black in 60 s by combining reversible metal electrodeposition with ion insertion.

The instability of quantum dot inks hinders the scaling up of colloidal quantum dot electronics. Now, Shi and team stabilize the inks with an iodine-rich environment in a weakly coordinating solvent, achieving 13.4% in small-area solar cells and over 10% in modules.

Low-cost, flexible solar cells offer new possibilities to harvest solar energy, for example on curved or movable surfaces. Here, Docampo and colleagues demonstrate the fabrication of efficient organometallic perovskite heterojunction solar cells on flexible substrates.

Two-terminal monolithic all-perovskite tandem solar cells are attractive due to their flexible nature and low-cost fabrication. Here the authors develop a process to obtain high-quality Sn–Pb perovskite thin films by incorporating chlorine. Such layers are employed to fabricate 20.7%-efficient tandem cells with 80 h operational stability.

Passivating contacts hold promise for silicon solar cells yet the simultaneous optimization of conductivity, defect passivation and optical transparency remains challenging. Now Köhler et al. devise a passivating contact based on a double layer of nanocrystalline silicon carbide that overcomes these trade-offs.

The perovskite/electron transport layer interface in inverted solar cells suffers from severe nonradiative recombination losses. Here, authors employ amino acid salts to passivate the film surface, achieving a power conversion efficiency of 26.28% using vacuum flash processing technology.

The authors timestamp the development of amyloid plaques in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease in order to examine how plaque age affects the surrounding brain tissue. This includes a growing loss of nearby synapses, an increase in toxicity, and an increase in structural aggregation.

Sensitive photocurrent spectroscopy and interference of light in perovskite solar cells with optical spacers reveal that electronic defects in these devices are localized at the interface between the semiconductor and the electron collecting contact.

Silicon is a popular material for solar cells, but is poor at absorbing infrared light, wasting much of this part of the solar spectrum. Here, Garin et al.show an efficient infrared photoresponse in nanometre-scale silicon spheres based on the resonant scattering of light that increases the dwelling time of light.

Electronic many-body effects are used to control the electron effective mass, and thus the plasma energy and electrical conductivity, of thin films of the correlated metals SrVO₃ and CaVO₃, making them good candidates as transparent conductors.

Copper and bipyridine (bpy) self-assemble in aqueous solutions at high pH into an active electrocatalyst for the oxidation of water to O₂, one of the great challenges in energy catalysis. These solutions contain primarily (bpy)Cu(OH)₂, and are robust and active catalysts, albeit at high overpotentials.

Wide-bandgap perovskite solar cells suffer from severe open-circuit voltage loss with increasing bromine content. Here, authors tackle this issue through homogeneous halogen-phase distribution realized by bottom-up templated crystallization and demonstrate tandem devices with efficiency of 28.08%.

Lithography technology enables the creation of intricate microstructures by projecting patterns from fixed templates onto samples. Liu et al. report a dynamic photomask using electrically stimulated nematic liquid crystals, which provides reconfigurable diffraction patterns, simplifying microstructure fabrication with enhanced flexibility and precision.

Semi-artificial photosynthetic systems combine natural and synthetic features to overcome limitations of each approach to produce solar fuels. Sokol et al. integrate a dye-sensitized TiO₂ photoanode with the natural machineries, photosystem II and hydrogenase, to split water without additional applied bias.

Charge disproportionation in thin molecular films of a metal–organic complex enables the realization of a ternary memristor and binary memcapacitor.

Perovskite solar cells degrade when subjected to reverse bias. Jiang et al. show that relatively thick hole transport layers and metal back contacts with improved electrochemical stability afford better tolerance to reverse bias.

Surveillance for blood-borne pathogens by immune cells occurs chiefly in the spleen and liver. Kubes and colleagues show that liver Kupffer cells directly sample the bloodstream and are the predominant antigen-presenting cell for invariant natural killer T cells