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Bifacial Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ photovoltaics have limited efficiency. Now Yang et al. have developed a process for low-temperature deposition of the absorber material that suppresses the formation of a detrimental GaO_x interlayer and reduces the back interface recombination, enabling efficiencies of over 19% and 10% under front and rear illumination, respectively.

Sodium beta-alumina (SBA) compositions are well known as ionic conductors. Nevertheless, ionic and electron conductivities perpendicular to the lattice planes in the material are very low. It is now shown that by exploiting this property, SBAs can be used as transistor gate dielectrics in solution-processed devices using oxide-based and polymer electrodes.

Leveraging in-memory computing with emerging gain-cell devices, the authors accelerate attention—a core mechanism in large language models. They train a 1.5-billion-parameter model, achieving up to a 70,000-fold reduction in energy consumption and a 100-fold speed-up compared with GPUs.

While there has been evidence of strong carrier multiplication effects in halide perovskites, studies in actual solar cells are lacking. Here, the authors demonstrate such effects with a low threshold of 2E_g and a high efficiency of 99.4%, realizing unbiased internal quantum efficiency up to 160%.

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.

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.

Perovskite photovoltaics are promising for space applications, but their reliability needs to be addressed. Now, Kirmani et al. present a 1-μm-thick silicon oxide that affords protection against protons, alpha particles and atomic oxygen.

The SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid (N) protein serves multiple roles in the viral lifecycle. Phosphorylation toggles N between these roles by altering N’s conformation, its material properties when phase separated with RNA, and its membrane interactions.

Bipolarons - two electrons or holes localized on the same molecule - are generally considered negligible in organic electronic devices. Dhanker et al. show that large bipolaron densities can exist near electrode interfaces and that they are linked to the phenomenon of unipolar organic magnetoresistance.

Chen et al. report a large-area white LED with sunlight-like emission by regulating the heterophase γ/σ-CsPb(I/Cl)₃ at nanoscale, in which a fraction of carriers recombines in γ-CsPbI₃ for deep-red emission, while other carriers diffuse to the heterophase interface for broadband emission.

Strong electrorefractive effects in semiconductor transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) at near-infrared wavelengths, where the TMDs are transparent, are observed and used to demonstrate photonic devices based on a composite SiN–TMD platform with large phase modulation, minimal induced loss and low electrical power consumption.

Carbon nanotubes can enhance the excitability of neurons by forming tight contacts with the cell membranes to favour electrical shortcuts between the distal and proximal compartments of the neuron.

An organic electrolytic photocapacitor transducing deep-red light into electrical signals and implanted within a thin cuff around the sciatic nerve of rats allows for wireless electrical stimulation of the nerve for over 100 days.

One of the possible events signaling a neutrinoless double beta decay is a Xe atom decaying into a Ba ion and two electrons. Aiming at the realisation of a detector for such a process, the authors show that Ba ions can be efficiently trapped (chelated) in vacuum by an organic molecule layer on a surface.

The presence and leaching of toxic lead in perovskite solar cells form a major environmental concern. Here the authors embed low-cost lead-absorbing resins into the perovskite layers, which reduces the lead leakage to the level of safety without compromising the device performance.

Analysis of samples from the asteroid Ryugu provide evidence of late fluid flow in a carbonaceous asteroid, indicating that such bodies may have retained two to three times more water than previously thought.

Chemical approaches to improve aqueous dispersions of conjugated polymers are limited by the feasibility of modifying the backbone or lead to poor performance. Here, Liu et al. show that ground-state electron transfer in donor:acceptor blends aids aqueous dispersion, for high conductivity and solubility.

Here the authors use synthetic tools to control elements of the cytoskeleton during amoeboid migration. They uncover two feedback loops sufficient to generate cell polarity; one at the cell front in where branched actin polymerization increases Ras activation, and at the back, myosin filament assembly inhibits Ras activation.

Thermally activated delayed fluorescence organic light-emitting diodes (TADF-OLEDs) rely on high triplet energy interlayers to confine excitons, which results in reduced performance. Here, the authors report high-performance blue TADF-OLEDs with below bandgap electroluminescence.

Tin-based perovskites possess the suitable narrow-bandgap for tandem solar cells but their short carrier diffusion lengths limit device efficiency. Here Yang et al. add cadmium ions to increase diffusion length to above 2 µm by reducing the background free hole concentration and electron trap density.

Interfacial charge transfer states are believed to have an important role in the performance of organic solar cells. Bernardo et al.show that delocalization achieved through local fullerene order is critical to achieving long-range charge separation from these otherwise tightly bound states.

A multimodal microscopy toolkit reveals nanoscale defect clusters in halide perovskite films and that these clusters are sites at which photochemical degradation seeds.

Flexible organic electronics could eventually be used to create electronic skin. Films of a pressure-sensitive microstructured elastomer are now used as the dielectric layer in organic field-effect transistors to create highly sensitive devices. The elastomer is also used in a matrix pressure sensor that can detect loads in numerous positions.

By diluting conjugated polymers in high-bandgap host matrices it is shown that electron trapping effects can be significantly reduced. This approach is used to fabricate polymer LEDs with enhanced efficiency and reduced fabrication costs.

A parallel experimental and computational approach was used to predict and prepare intercalated, layered hybrid perovskites, highlighting the breadth and flexibility of intercalation.

Quantitative analysis of polymer LED degradation under current stress provides insight on the role of hole traps and their formation. Blending of the emitting material with large-bandgap semiconductors leads to trap dilution and improved stability.

Bloch wavefunctions of two types of hole in gallium arsenide are reconstructed by measuring the polarization of light emitted by collisions of electrons and holes accelerated by a terahertz laser.

Quasi-2D halide perovskites are attracting increasing attention for light-emitting devices. Here, the authors demonstrated efficient and stable quasi-2D perovskite LEDs enabled by suppressed phase disproportionation with newly designed organic ligands.

The physical properties of devices made of printed nanosheets and nanowires are determined by their intrinsic nanostructured network morphology. Here, the authors use FIB-SEM nanotomography to quantitatively analyze printed nanostructured networks via 3D reconstructions.

A consensus cell type atlas for the fly brain provides both an intellectual framework and open-source toolchains for brain-scale comparative connectomics.

The kinetics of liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS) in cell-like confinements remains poorly understood. Now it has been shown that it involves complex interplay between the incipient phases and the membrane boundary, which arrests phase coarsening, deforms the membrane and couples LLPS with lipid phase separation.

Despite the impressive demonstrations with silicon and oxide memristors, realizing efficient roots of trust for resource-constrained hardware remains a challenge. Here, the authors exploit switching behavior in one dimensional perovskite memristors to design security primitives for key generation and device authentication.

One pathway for improving the performance of optoelectronics is the tailoring energy bands of the charge transport layer. Here, Kim et al present a charge transfer complex composed out of nanodomains of MoO₃ embedded within an NiO matrix, significantly improving green and blue OLED performance.

The authors describe how reduced dietary availability and systemic loss of cysteine leads to adipose tissue browning and rapid weight loss in mice and humans.

The stability issue of perovskite-based solar cells is in part due to electrode corrosion. Here, Brinkmannet al. develop an impermeable bilayered electron-extraction layer between the active layer and the electrode, suppressing decomposition of the perovskite and preventing corrosion from the inside.

Low-dimensional tin-halide perovskites exhibit strong temperature dependence of luminescence decay time that translates into high sensitivity over a wide range of temperatures and as such can be used in high-resolution remote thermography.

Deep learning enhanced chemical imaging delineated polymorphic Aβ plaques in situ. Cored plaques were associated with increased Aβ1-40 and 3pE-42 deposition. A distinct, coarse-grained plaque phenotype was specific to AD, showed increased neuritic dystrophy and an Aβ-pattern similar to CAA.

Hybrid perovskite semiconductors are promising for wavelength-tunable laser diodes but their behavior under intense electrical excitation remains unexplored. Kim et al. investigate perovskite light emitting diodes at current densities nearing 1 kA cm⁻² and suggest that a laser diode is within reach.

Perovskite and organic photodiodes are gaining traction for ultraviolet–visible and near-infrared photodetection owing to their tunable properties and low-cost fabrication potential. In this Review, we discuss recent progress in this area, focusing on specific detectivity, charge recombination and key performance metrics, while outlining future directions for real-world application and commercial viability.