Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
The rapid growth of the 2D MXene family is driven by the designer chemistry control of their composition and structure. This Review discusses how compositional diversity, atomic arrangement, defects and surface chemistry govern properties, design strategies and emerging applications across technologies.
Conducting polymers and other organic conductors enable emerging applications in bioelectronics, neuromorphic computing, energy storage and thermoelectric devices. This Review examines their charge transport physics at high carrier densities, including how complex microstructure, electron–electron interactions and electron–dopant counterion interactions govern transport behaviour.
Exceptional points enable unique light–matter interactions in non-Hermitian systems. This Review surveys band, scattering and Jones exceptional points in engineered materials, highlighting emerging applications and phenomena including topological properties, dynamic control, braiding, wavefront shaping and special states.
Building scalable quantum technologies requires generating robust many-body entanglement in solid-state platforms. This Review highlights how engineered light–matter interactions, optical nonlinearities and coupling to nanophotonic structures enable coherent many-body entangled states that are resilient to disorder and decoherence.
Emerging applications, including artificial intelligence, are associated with increasing energy consumption, posing fundamental challenges to the long-term sustainability of current electronic devices. This Review discusses key metrics for energy efficiency and explores how the unique structural, electronic and polymorphic properties of van der Waals materials enable new device strategies.
Challenges in integrating on-board electronic control have long prevented microrobots from achieving complex autonomy at small scales, leaving applications dependent on simpler, externally controlled particles. This Review examines recent developments in scaling modular microrobots down towards cellular scales.
Sodium-ion batteries are promising low-cost alternatives to lithium-ion systems yet limited by underperforming anodes. This Review highlights advances and challenges in hard carbon and alloy-based anodes, outlining design strategies to boost capacity, stability and commercial viability of next-generation high-energy sodium-ion batteries.
Graphene nanoribbons synthesized via bottom–up methods show great promise for nanoelectronics and quantum technologies. This Review highlights their synthesis, properties and device geometries, showcasing quantum transport phenomena and outlining challenges for future technologies.
Haptic interfaces are shifting from rigid systems to deformable, skin-conforming formats enabled by advances in materials and structural design. This Review discusses progress in flexible haptic technologies, introduces performance metrics and outlines challenges for next-generation tactile feedback systems.
Nanoprinting is a powerful fabrication strategy for scalable, high-resolution optical metasurfaces made from a diverse range of materials. This Review surveys recent advances in printing precision, throughput and reconfigurable materials, highlighting the promise of nanoprinting for next-generation flat-optics manufacturing and advanced photonic systems.
Broken and tailored symmetries have a fundamental role in wave phenomena and their applications. This Review surveys the recent progress in the domain of artificial phononic media with an emphasis on the role of symmetry breaking, in both space and time, for advanced wave phenomena.
The transition of perovskite solar cells from laboratory research to industrial-scale production creates an important opportunity to prioritize sustainability. This Review introduces a closed-loop framework, addressing material sourcing, fabrication methods, solvent design, lead-risk mitigation, recycling strategies and future directions.
The chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect offers a unique approach to control and manipulate electron spin properties. In this Review, we summarize how the CISS effect is being leveraged to improve efficiency in energy science technologies.
The implementation of low-dimensional perovskite capping layers is a promising strategy for enhancing the performance of perovskite solar cells; however, their thermal stability and reproducibility remain inadequately understood. This Review examines these underlying challenges, emphasizing ligand design and fabrication techniques to achieve high-quality, high-purity capping layers.
Two-dimensional framework materials offer atomic-level control over electronic properties and enable novel quantum phenomena and tunable functionality. This Review highlights how structural design, doping and measurement techniques influence conductivity, and it underscores key strategies for optimizing transport properties, with broad implications for electronics, energy and quantum technologies.
Airway mucus complicates treatment of respiratory disease by both defending the lungs and hindering inhaled drugs to cross the barriers. This Review explores translational advances in inhalable materials and biologics that enhance mucus protection or drug penetration.
Accurate, spatiotemporally resolved monitoring of environments and ecosystems serves as the starting point to both identify and remedy natural or anthropogenic environmental hazards. This Review covers materials science advances supporting a new paradigm in environmental sensing: distributed networks of sensing elements capable of system-level profiling with the possibility of harmless environmental resorption after a predetermined recording period.
The van der Waals MA2Z4 materials are a rapidly growing class of 2D materials with diverse electronic phases. This Review explores the structure, synthesis, properties and diverse applications of the emerging MA2Z4 family, highlighting their potential across electronics, catalysis and energy storage.
Coordination chemistry has a pivotal role in advancing redox-active electrolytes for energy technologies. This Review examines how ligand properties and coordination effects shape electrolyte thermodynamics, kinetics and electrochemical performance, guiding the rational design of next-generation aqueous redox flow batteries.
High-entropy nanomaterials are characterized by the incorporation of five or more principal elements in nearly equal proportions. This Review highlights how different synthetic methods for these nanomaterials can facilitate control of phase and particle size and shape for applications such as catalysis.
