Search

Silicon anodes promise much higher battery capacity but are limited by poor storage life. This work identifies key ageing mechanisms and suggests ways to improve long-term stability.

There has been a recent interest in control of magnetism via ionic transport. The appeal of such magneto-ionic control lies in its extent, non-volatility and potential energy-efficiency, however, the number of systems showing such behaviour is limited. Here, Tan, Ma, and coauthors demonstrate magneto-ionic control through Carbon transport.

A wearable paper-based microfluidic device tracks cortisol in sweat via gold nanoflower colorimetric assays and captures circadian rhythms, stress responses and jet lag disruptions.

Short-circuiting during fast charging through lithium dendrite intrusion into electrolytes is a major challenge in solid-state batteries. Here, using thermally annealed 3-nm-thick Ag coatings, lithium penetration into brittle electrolyte Li_6.6La₃Zr_1.6Ta_0.4O₁₂ is inhibited at local current densities of 250 mA cm⁻² due to an increase in surface fracture toughness.

A soft mesh microelectrode array can seamlessly integrate in developing brains, enabling long-term, stable mapping of how single-neuron activity and population dynamics emerge and evolve during brain development.

A flexible micro-electrocorticography brain–computer interface that integrates a 256 × 256 array of electrodes, signal processing, data telemetry and wireless powering on a single complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor substrate can provide stable, chronic in vivo recordings.

Garnet-type LLZO electrolytes are considered among the most promising solid-state electrolytes for all-solid-state batteries; however, numerous challenges need to be addressed before they are integrated into a cell. By precipitating amorphous zirconium oxide onto grain boundaries, increased ionic conductivity is observed and dendrite growth is suppressed.

Disorder has been a prime challenge to study the topological properties in a hybrid system. Here, Zhanget al. report ballistic superconductivity in InSb nanowires interfacing with a NbTiN superconductor, paving the way for disorder-free Majorana devices.

Whether temporal code and rate code have different rates of representational drift over extended periods is not fully understood. Using ultraflexible electrodes, here authors show that temporal codes extracted from fast spiking patterns reduce visual representational drift compared to firing rates over 15 consecutive days in mice.

Ambipolar transport, necessary to realise PN-junctions, is unfortunately missing from most two-dimensional semiconductors. Here, the authors fabricate few-layer black phosphorous field-effect transistors, define PN-junctions and demonstrate full electrostatic control of the device by means of local gating.

Magneto-ionics are a promising approach for controlling magnetism via electric fields, but most studies have been limited to thin films, rather than the nanostructures that would form the basis of a magneto-ionic memory unit. Here, Spasojevic et al demonstrate magneto-ionic control over transitions among paramagnetic, single domain, and vortex states in an array of nanodots.

Allelic variants for the HIV-1 co-receptors chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) and CCR2, as well as the ligand for the co-receptor CXCR4, stromal-derived factor (SDF-1), have been associated with a delay in disease progression. We began this study to test whether polymorphisms in the CCRS regulatory regions influence the course of HIV-1 disease, as well as to examine the role of the previously identified allelic variants in 1,090 HIV-1 infected individuals. Here we describe the evolutionary relationships between the phenotypically important CCRS alleles, define precisely the CCR5 regulatory sequences that are linked to the CCR5-Δ32 and CCR2-64I polymorphisms, and identify genotypes associated with altered rates of HIV-1 disease progression. The disease-retarding effects of the CCR2-64I allele were found in African Americans but not in Caucasians, and the SDF1-3′A/3′A genotype was associated with an accelerated progression to death. In contrast, the CCR5-Δ32 allele and a CCR5 promoter mutation with which it is tightly linked were associated with limited disease-retarding effects. Collectively, these findings draw attention to a complex array of genetic determinants in the HIV-host interplay.

The development of direct in situ disinfection methods in bottles is of vital importance for providing safe drinking water, especially in rural and disaster-stricken areas. Harvesting the electrostatic charges induced by walking can stimulate electroporation disinfection and provide readily available portable water for point-of-use applications.

Assessment of surface contamination shows that trace oxygen is a key factor influencing the trajectory and quality of graphene grown by low-pressure chemical vapour deposition, with oxygen-free synthesis showing increased reproducibility and quality.

A photodetector responding to only circularly polarized light is developed. It has a ring-shaped form, consisting of plasmonic nanostructures on a graphene sheet. Its zero-bias responsivity and detectivity of ellipticity in the mid-infrared at room temperature are 392 V W⁻¹ and 0.03° Hz^−1/2, respectively.

PARP enzymes play key roles in human biology, but their regulation remains poorly understood. This study shows that PARP15 is activated through dimerization of its catalytic domain and reveals how this event primes the domain for ADP-ribosyl transfer.

All-optical switching of magnetization refers to the process whereby an optical pulse is used to reverse the magnetization of a magnetic system. In a small subset of magnetic materials, this process can occur with a single optical pulse, known as single-shot all optical switching, enabling fast operations. Here, Peng et al show that this process can occur for a wide variety of rare earth–transition metal multilayers, expanding the range of potential materials that can exhibit this effect.

People living in rural areas of the United States have poorer outcomes from acute COVID-19. Here, the authors show that higher mortality rates among rural dwellers persist for up to two years after the initial infection, even after accounting for baseline risk factors.

We report full-colour, vertically stacked µLEDs that achieve exceptionally high array density (5,100 pixels per inch) and small size (4 µm) via a 2D material-based layer transfer technique, allowing the creation of full-colour µLED displays for augmented and virtual reality.

Inefficient filters and overall efficiency are issues for display technology. Luminescent concentrator pixels have been used with CdSe/CdS quantum dot emitters, which enable both colour and polarization filtering, as well as nearly 41% extraction efficiency.

As a material's thickness decreases towards the atomic-scale, dimensional confinement may promote behaviour not found in the bulk, with potential technological applications. Here, the authors study superconductivity in TaS₂as it is mechanically exfoliated towards the two-dimensional limit.

The authors introduce advanced technology for controlled wireless light delivery in optogenetics applications with real-time user programming capacity. The utility of the platform is highlighted by induction of neural synchrony to modify social behavior in mice.

By virtue of strong spin-orbit coupling, a current-carrying heavy metal may generate a torque on the magnetization of an interfaced ferromagnetic metal. Here, the authors demonstrate how this effect assists the magnetic reversal of ferromagnetic insulators with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy.

Electric fields typically break symmetry when applied as a stimulus to materials. Here, by forming a superlattice of BiFeO₃ and TbScO₃, it is shown that an electric field can repeatedly stabilize mixed-phase polar and antipolar BiFeO₃.

This study explores the dynamics of adolescent depression through the lens of network temperature, a novel concept in psychological symptom networks. Researchers observed a decrease in network temperature across adolescence, indicating increased stability and decreased variability of depressive symptoms as adolescents age and with distinct patterns between sexes. This work emphasizes the importance of understanding network dynamics over static measures, offering new insights into the stability and variability of depression symptoms.

Liquid biopsy assays are important to prognosticate outcomes of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients treated with androgen receptor (AR) inhibitors. Here this group reports detecting circulating tumor DNA in limiting plasma cell-free DNA of mCRPC patients as prognostic marker of poor survival after AR treatment.

Polymer-covered inorganic nanoparticles are designed to self-assemble into micrometre-sized superlattice crystallites that can subsequently be built into freestanding centimetre-scale solids with hierarchical order across seven orders of magnitude.

Thermal scanning probe lithography can be used to pattern metal electrodes in direct contact with monolayer MoS₂, creating field-effect transistors that exhibit vanishing Schottky barrier heights, high on/off ratios of 10¹⁰, no hysteresis, and subthreshold swings as low as 64 mV per decade.

Designing energy efficient and scalable artificial networks for neuromorphic computing remains a challenge. Here, the authors demonstrate tree-like conductance states at room temperature in strongly correlated perovskite nickelates by modulating proton distribution under high speed electric pulses.

Robbins and colleagues show that cigarette smoke-induced endothelial dysfunction enables atherosclerotic plaque macrophages to drive abdominal aortic aneurysm formation in a mouse model of atherosclerosis.

Here the authors show that illumination of a lithium manganese oxide cathode can induce efficient charge-separation and electron transfer processes, thus giving rise to a new type of fast lithium-ion battery charging.

Single-walled carbon nanotubes offer exciting optoelectronic applications but generally suffer from low quantum yields. Here, Luo et al. demonstrate that coupling nanotubes to plasmonic antennas can lead to large Purcell enhancement and corresponding increase in quantum yield as well as plasmonic thermometry at the single molecule level.

Molecular beam epitaxy now enables the growth of nanowire heterostructures composed of a semiconducting core and a metallic epitaxial shell. This improved synthesis leads to the creation of a hard superconducting gap with no subgap states.

AlphaStar uses a multi-agent reinforcement learning algorithm and has reached Grandmaster level, ranking among the top 0.2% of human players for the real-time strategy game StarCraft II.

Thermally assisted magnetic scanning probe lithography is used to reversibly pattern magnetic anisotropy landscapes in a continuous exchange-bias system, where propagating spin waves are excited.

The proper verification of the stability of metal oxide catalysts for water electrolysis in acid electrolyte remains unresolved. Here, the ‘stability number’ is introduced to evaluate the dissolution mechanisms of various iridium-based oxides and to facilitate benchmarking of catalysts independent of loading, surface area or involved active sites.

Pharmacologic inhibition of dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH) shows limited efficacy in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) models. Here the authors find that targeting the anti-apoptotic protein BCL-XL synergizes with DHODH inhibition in promoting apoptosis in PDAC cells, patient-derived organoids, and PDAC mouse models.

Parallel patterning of atoms over a large surface would represent a major advance over current serial methods of single atom manipulation. Here, the authors explore a periodic instability from liquid alloy droplets for high-throughput atom printing.