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The authors developed a highly sensitive skin-conformal NIR organic photodetector with fast photoresponse speed that achieves MHz-speed, angle-free, and long-range (100 m) wireless optical communication with stable performance under mechanical deformation.

The energy-level alignment at the heterojunction critically influences the performance of organic photovoltaic devices. It is now shown that the surface dipole moments of individual organic semiconductor films can be tuned with surface-segregated monolayers before forming bilayer solar cells by a simple film-transfer method.

Black phosphorus (BP) is considered a promising van der Waals material for the realization of mid-infrared detectors. Here, the authors report the realization of flexible infrared imagers based on solution-processed BP photodiodes on thin plastic substrates, showing long term stability and mechanical robustness.

Flexible electronic devices remain an attractive technology for optical sensor applications that require long-term health monitoring and conformability on human skin. Here, the authors report an ultrathin self-powered integrated organic optical system for plethysmogram monitoring.

High-resolution imaging technologies call for photodetectors with high-gain and linear response over a large dynamic range. Chow et al. show a dual-gate structure that combines the operation of photodiodes and phototransistors to enable both amplified and linear response without external circuitry.

Solar-powered desalination is a sustainable approach to generate clean water for our society. Here, authors report lightweight, flexible, and fluidic-diode membrane-based evaporators to allow directional water transport and optimized heat localization. This Janus evaporator design enables high performance interfacial solar water evaporation, as well as hydrovoltaic applications.

A conformable imager with a resolution of 508 pixels per inch, a speed of 41 frames per second and a total thickness of only 15 μm can be used to capture images of fingerprints and veins, and to map pulse waves.

Ferromagnetic systems produced by the transition metal doping of semiconductors may be used as components of spintronic devices. Here, a new ferromagnet, Li_1+y(Zn_1-xMn_x)As, is prepared in bulk quantities and shown to have a critical temperature approaching 50 K.

A composite fibrous material made of carbon nanotubes and graphene responds to small pressure but not to bending deformation.

The present work reports a novel and unique strategy for strengthening semi-crystalline polymers; nano-structuring by introducing ultra-fine mosaics into the crystalline lamellae indeed increases the strength. This is inspired by the well-known empirical strengthening principle for metals/alloys, the so-called Hall-Petch relation, which has clearly shown that simply having smaller crystalline grains makes metals/alloys stronger. In contrast to the increasing-crystallinity strategy that has been used so far for semi-crystalline polymers, the present nano-structuring effects provide an alternative strength-ductility tailoring method based on higher-order structure control (i.e. crystalline-size control) that can be achieved simply by a heat elongation process.

Detection of biometric signals by self-powered electronic devices that are highly flexible and can be applied to skin.

Deoxygenating phenols is a difficult task, made more complex by the tendency of hydrogenation techniques to also reduce the aromatic ring. Here, the authors show an iridium catalyst that can selectively cleave the C–O bond in phenols and related compounds, as well as cleaving aryl methyl ethers.

Devices that generate electricity from electric fluctuations are promising for wireless power transmission as well as energy harvesting from environmental radio waves. Here the authors report the electric power generation from environmental fluctuations by using superconducting vortex strings in MoGe/YIG bilayer system.

Silver nanocolloids are promising materials for printed electronic technologies. Here, the authors manufacture ultrafine conductive patterns utilizing the exclusive chemisorption of weakly encapsulated silver nanocolloids on a photoactivated surface.

Using photoelectrodes to split water is a promising approach to convert solar energy to fuel, but photoanode stability is often an issue. Now, a Mo-doped BiVO₄ photoanode is shown to stably evolve oxygen for 1,000 h due to in situ regeneration of the catalyst, and inhibition of photocorrosion.

Fullerenes are intrinsically electron deficient species which can facilitate challenging transformations in organic chemistry. Here fullerene-fused alkoxy ethers are shown to undergo copper-promoted oxidation by single electron transfer to the corresponding ketones via a fullerene radical cation intermediate.

The one-dimensional laser cooling of positronium enables testing of quantum electrodynamics and could realize Bose–Einstein condensation in positronium.

High throughput imaging flow cytometry suffers from trade-offs between throughput, sensitivity and spatial resolution. Here the authors introduce a method to virtually freeze cells in the image acquisition window to enable 1000 times longer signal integration time and improve signal-to-noise ratio.

Liquid-crystalline nanostructures can form well-organized 1D, 2D and 3D channels capable of transporting ions or electrons. In this Review, the design of liquid-crystalline phases, their self-assembled structures, and the fabrication and function of devices incorporating them are described.

Thermoelectric effects are limited to electrons to occur, and disappear at low temperatures due to electronic entropy quenching. Here, the authors report thermoelectric generation caused by nuclear spins down to 100 mK due to nuclear-spin excitation in a magnetically ordered material MnCO₃.

A rubber-like, metal–organic crystal is reported with a mechanically interlocked catenane backbone, which could allow for easy guest molecule uptake and release.

Radical polymerization of a metastable lactone intermediate — formed from carbon dioxide and butadiene using a palladium catalyst — produces a high-CO₂-content (29 wt%) polymer. This approach circumvents the thermodynamic and kinetic barriers typically associated with direct copolymerization of carbon dioxide and olefins, and can also be applied to one-pot co- and terpolymerization of carbon dioxide and 1,3-butadienes.

Label-free, video-rate metabolite imaging of live Euglena gracilis shows spatiotemporal intracellular metabolite distributions under different culture conditions.

Carbon-neutral hydrogen can be produced through photocatalytic water splitting, as demonstrated here with a 100-m² array of panel reactors that reaches a maximum conversion efficiency of 0.76%.

While shock waves are widely used in clinical and biological research due to their ability to deform the cell’s membrane and its permeability, the mechanisms of such interaction are still unclear. Here, the authors propose a method that allows to monitor the dynamic deformation of a cell’s membrane in response to shock waves and its effect on permeability.

Nematic liquid-crystalline (LC) gels showing electrooptical switching have been prepared for the mixtures of a new polymerizable lysine-based gelator and a nematic LC compound, 4-cyano-4′-pentylbiphenyl. Finely dispersed fibrous networks are formed by self-assembly of the gelators through the formation of hydrogen bonds. In-situ photopolymerization of the gelators in the self-assembled state leads to thermal stabilization of the fibrous network structures. The threshold voltage of electrooptical switching for the polymerized LC gel is lower than that for non-polymerized LC gels.

While methods for estimating the entropy production rate of a stationary process are relatively well established, this is still a challenge in non-stationary conditions. Here, the authors propose a scheme to infer the exact value of the time-dependent entropy production rate as well as entropy production along with single realizations directly from trajectory data.

We report a formal aryne/ethylene copolymerization using [2.2.1]oxabicyclic alkenes as aryne equivalents. A palladium-catalyzed copolymerization of [2.2.1]oxabicyclic alkenes with ethylene followed by acid-promoted dehydration produced novel aryne/ethylene copolymers. The use of a bulky phosphine–sulfonate ligand was essential to obtain the desired copolymers with high molecular weight. The present study provides a useful method for the introduction of o-arylene units into the main chains of polyethylene.

Senoo et al. describe a chemical fragment that disrupts dimerization of P-cadherin. In doing so, this fragment inhibits cadherin-mediated cell-adhesion and aggregation.

Over the past two decades, intensive efforts have been devoted to the development of group-10 metal catalysts, especially nickel and palladium ligated by unsymmetric bidentate ligands aimed at the copolymerization of olefins with polar monomers. Here we synthesized a palladium complex bearing a methoxyethoxygroup and applied it to the copolymerization of ethylene and methyl acrylate. Higher incorporation of methyl acrylate was detected in the presence of lithium borate such as LiBAr^F₄. The effect was limited to lithium, and the counteranion also affected the catalyst performance.

Enhancing light-matter interaction at gigahertz rates has so far been achieved by structural modification of materials, but does not allow the behaviour to be switched on-demand. Here, an alternative method using pulsed light is presented that provides improved control.

This review introduce the structure and properties of electrospun nanofiber materials and the various strategies for assembling soft electronic devices such as sensors, transistors, and components for energy harvesting and storage.

Polymers that contain arylene groups in their main chain are of significant importance because of their applications to semiconducting materials or engineering plastics. Therefore, controlled methods for the synthesis of arylene-containing polymers based on chain-growth polymerization have been intensively developed in polymer chemistry. This review focuses on the advances in chain-growth polymerization accompanied by formation/introduction of arylene groups into polymer main chains.

In this Focus Review, we summarize our new strategy to create electroresponsive soft materials using electroresponsive dopants. Dopants can change the property of the LC material only with a minute amount and do not need to have an LC property by itself, allowing a simple molecular design. Based on this new concept, we developed cholesteric displays with rewritable color memory functions and quick color modulation functions. We also utilized this concept to create new columnar LC systems and realized multiresponsive columnar LC materials.

To obtain a novel biomimetic polymer, we have been studying polymers with an autonomous self-oscillating function. We succeeded in developing a novel self-oscillating polymer and gel by using an oscillating reaction, called the Belousov–Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction, which is recognized as a chemical model for understanding several autonomous phenomena in biological systems. The self-oscillating polymer is composed of a poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) network in which the catalyst for the BZ reaction is covalently immobilized. Under the coexistence of the reactants, the polymer undergoes spontaneous cyclic soluble–insoluble changes or swelling–deswelling changes (in the case of gel) without any on–off switching of external stimuli. Several kinds of functional material systems using the self-oscillating polymer and gel, such as biomimetic actuators, mass transport surface and so on, are expected.

The design and functions of various liquid-crystalline (LC) polymers including main-chain, side-chain and network LC polymers as well as dendritic structures are described. These polymeric LC materials can be applied for electro-, ion-, photo-active materials as well as mechanically tough materials. The introduction of supramolecular design has also generated a new category of functional LC materials.