Review Articles

This review first reported three possible mechanisms for superelasticity in different materials, including intrinsic atomic cooperative motions, extrinsic size, and geometric effects. These intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms are well summarized through extensive examples showing outstanding recoverable strains in small-sized or geometric shape memory alloys, amorphous alloys, semiconductors, and carbon-based materials. Next, this review pointed out a possible route to further extend the limit of elastic or recoverable strains with the combination of intrinsic superelasticity, size-induced superelasticity, and geometry-induced superelasticity in micro/nanostructured materials, such as superlattices and composites. Lastly, with the superior performance, the promising application values of superelastic micro/nanostructured materials are summarized in plenty of areas.

Intrinsically soft electronics marry high-conductivity metallic nanomaterials and liquid metals with elastomeric/hydrogel matrices to deliver stretchable, durable, and biocompatible devices. This review synthesizes design principles from percolation-guided nanocomposites (0D/1D/2D fillers), liquid-metal patterning, and unconventional fabrication (printing, soft/photolithography, laser) to overcome fatigue and resolution limits of geometry-engineered rigid systems. We highlight applications spanning low-impedance electrodes and sensors, strain-invariant interconnects and circuits, optoelectronics, wireless components, energy storage/harvesting, and stretchable memory. Remaining challenges—long-term stability, scalable manufacturing, and safe biointegration—are outlined with prospects for closed-loop, AI-enabled systems and fully integrated soft platforms.

Microneedles (MNs) are an innovative and minimally invasive approach to ocular drug delivery. Unlike traditional methods such as eye drops or injections, MNs can directly target specific eye tissues, including the cornea and retina, allowing for more effective treatment and improved patient comfort. This review highlights recent advances in MN technology, including 3D printing for customized geometries and the use of smart materials for sustained and controlled drug release. These innovations underscore the potential of MNs to transform treatment strategies for chronic eye diseases.

Implantable neural probes have greatly advanced understanding of brain functions, facilitated treatments of neurological diseases, and enabled brain–computer interface. However, conventional neural probes made of rigid inorganic materials often have stiffness orders of magnitude higher than that of the brains, and feature sizes much larger than individual neurons. These mechanical and structural mismatches limit their capability for long-term brain interface. This review dives into the biological mechanisms underlying these limitations. It then summarizes recent advances in next-generation, long-term stable probe technologies driven by material and structural innovations. The review concludes with a discussion of challenges and opportunities for future research.

Single-atom perovskite materials are versatile substances capable of addressing various shortcomings that arise when used individually. These materials demonstrate enhanced catalytic performance, cost efficiency, electron transport capabilities, chemical stability, optical properties, and a tunable band gap. This review paper provides a comprehensive overview of recent synthesis methods, characterization techniques, applications, and future perspectives. Moreover, by sharing insights into the potential direction of single-atom perovskite materials, we aim to inspire ongoing research, ultimately positioning these materials at the forefront of innovation in materials science.

The discovery of superconductivity in high-entropy materials has garnered considerable interest, leading to accelerated advancements in this field in recent years. Some interesting phenomena have been found in high-entropy superconductors, such as the robustness of superconductivity to pressure, large upper critical field, strong coupling behavior, and topological band structure. Accordingly, the present review article is dedicated to summarizing the recently reported works on the structural type and physical properties of high-entropy superconductors, as well as their potential applications. Finally, we provide our perspective on the future challenges of high-entropy superconductors.

Lithium-ion battery (LIB) waste management is an integral part of the LIB circular economy. LIB refurbishing & repurposing and recycling can increase the useful life of LIBs and constituent materials, while serving as effective LIB waste management approaches. A combined effort by governments, industries and end-users will be integral in improving LIB waste collection rates which are largely lacking. A developed pseudo technical green score concept highlights direct recycling as a preferable recycling approach based on various life cycle assessment indicators. Standardized costing for the treatment of end-of-life LIBs shows pyrometallurgy as the least costly recycling approach.

Organic electrode materials have gained considerable interest in the area of energy storage owing to their cost effectiveness, stability, tunable nature and high power. The use of natural ingredients, carbon-based materials and polymers for fabrication impart flexibility and light weight to the gadgets. Organic electrode materials present the potential for biodegradable energy storage solutions in batteries and supercapacitors, fostering innovation in sustainable technology.

The next-generation coronary artery stent by self-assembled coating: Self-assembled coatings in drug-eluting stents can bind biomaterials and offer several advantages over traditional coatings, including thinner structures, stronger binding capacity, and better biocompatibility. The encouraging achievements of self-assembled stent coatings include corrosion resistance, anti-fouling, anti-thrombogenicity, endothelialization, and targeted gene therapy. Future investigation and development of self-assembly in stent coatings will help improve the functionalities of self-assembled coatings in coronary artery stents and greatly extend their applications.

Black phase CsPbI₃ easily transforms into the non-perovskite yellow phase, while losing the outstanding optoelectronic properties. In this review, the origin of the phase stability in CsPbI₃ and strategies to stabilize the black phases exhibiting the α-phase or the relatively easily stabilized β/γ-phases are extensively discussed. Furthermore, a profound analysis of the CsPbI₃ stabilization progress and the evolution of the performance efficiency records of black phase CsPbI₃ is provided. Lastly, a prospective on future research on CsPbI₃ solar cells pinpoints the current challenges and directs future research approaches toward more efficient and stable devices.

This research is emphasized particularly on cathodes (such as carbon, metal oxides, MXenes, and redox-active polymers), anodes (such as Zn-based composite materials and Zn-free materials), electrolytes (organic/ionic liquid electrolytes, WiSs, redox electrolytes, polymer or solid electrolytes) as well as the design of a novel device for ZHSCs.

Despite years of exploration, numerous challenges remain unresolved in the field of hydrogels and hydrogel membranes for bone repair. In this review, we provide a comprehensive overview of the fundamental principles and current development status of hydrogel materials for bone repair, including their mechanisms, formation principles, and medical benefits in bone regeneration. Additionally, we summarize recent effective strategies to develop advanced hydrogels and technical approaches for bone repair while also discussing future directions.

Wearable devices provide an alternative way to clinically diagnose respiratory diseases in a non-invasive and real-time manner. In this review, we summarize the recent developments in the field of wearable respiratory sensors, including the methods to synthesize various sensing materials, the ways to improve respiratory sensing performances, and the feature comparison among different sensing materials. We also summarize the concentrations, sources and associated diseases of various biomarkers in exhaled gas. Finally, we discuss current trends in the field to provide predictions for the future trajectory of wearable respiratory sensors.

Biomaterial fabrication techniques and therapeutic strategies for spinal cord injury. This review focuses on the most recent advancements of biomaterial-based therapeutics for the treatment of spinal cord injury. The outer ring of the figure shows four fabrication techniques for tissue engineering: hydrogel, electrospinning, 3D printing and decellularization. The inner ring shows the injured spinal cord and the roles of biomaterials in spinal cord injury repair, for instance, restoring the blood‒spinal cord barrier (BSCB).

Oxide-based thermoelectric materials that exhibit a high figure of merit are promising because of their good chemical and thermal stabilities and their relative harmlessness compared with chalcogenide-based state-of-the-art thermoelectric materials. The layered barium-cobalt oxide (Ba_1/3CoO₂) exhibits a record-high ZT of 0.55 at 600 °C in air. The increase in ZT is directly originated by the decreased thermal conductivity of Ba_1/3CoO₂. As we hypothesized, the greater the atomic mass, the lower the thermal conductivity, resulting in higher ZT. The ZT is reliable and the highest among thermoelectric oxides. Moreover, this value is comparable to those of p-type PbTe and p-type SiGe.

Malaria continues to be among the most lethal infectious diseases. In the last two decades, we have witnessed unprecedented success in reducing the mortality rate. With the UN resolution of eradicating malaria by 2030 approaching fast, the scientific community has devoted substantial attention to interdisciplinary research using the latest opto-/magnetic-based technologies to detect a novel biomarker coming from the malarial pigment (hemozoin), which also carries vital information for discovering targeted drugs. This perspective article looks into the growing interest in this field and discusses the practical applicability of these sensing technologies.

This review highlights single-aggregate spectroscopy studies of conjugated polymer aggregates based on a combination of solvent vapor annealing and single-molecule fluorescence techniques and draws mesoscopic connections between morphology, electronic coupling, and photophysics in conjugated polymers.

Inverted perovskite solar cells (PSCs) with a p-i-n architecture are being actively researched due to their concurrent good stability and decent efficiency. In particular, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of inverted PSCs has seen clear improvement in recent years and is now almost approaching that of n-i-p PSCs. Here, we systematically review recent progress in the development of high-efficiency inverted PSCs, and highlight the development of charge transport materials and the effects of defect passivation strategies on the performance of inverted PSCs, with the aim of providing constructive suggestions for the future development of inverted PSCs.

This review highlights the recent advances in the bioapplications of higher-order DNA origami structures at multiple scales. After a brief introduction to the development of DNA origami, we describe the use of DNA origami structures to assist in single-molecule studies, manipulate lipid membranes, direct cell behaviors, and deliver drugs as smart nanocarriers. Our opinions on the current challenges and future directions are also shared.

Due to their unique physical characteristics, surfactants containing fluorocarbon chains form hierarchical patterns of two-dimensional mesoscopic/microscopic self-assemblies on the surface of water. This review describes the overarching physical mechanism, the competitive interplay of line tension and dipole interaction and discusses several key experimental and analytical techniques characterizing the shape, size, correlation, and viscoelasticity of mesoscopic/microscopic self-assemblies on water, which is often non-trivial. Some of the recent biomedical applications, including biomimetic surface coating, contrast agents in multimodal imaging, and controlled delivery, are introduced to highlight how the unique physicochemical properties of fluorinated self-assemblies can be applied in materials science.