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Water is increasingly recognized as being of paramount importance in biological processes, yet its exact role remains difficult to elucidate. Now, the motion of water molecules within and around a synthetic peptide-amphiphile nanofibre has been precisely determined, showing significant differences between its core and surface.

Some types of fish can change color by modifying their intracellular guanine crystal in response to external stimuli. Here, Sano et al. mimic this effect in a dilute aqueous dispersion containing titanate nanosheets, whose interlayer distance is tunable to match the entire visible light spectrum.

Postsynthetic modulation of the structural properties of hydrogels is desirable for a range of biomaterials applications. Here, the authors fabricate photolatently modulable polymer hydrogels crosslinked by titania nanosheets, which may be micropatterned with high spatial and temporal resolution.

Stretchable electronics enables applications on arbitrary curved surfaces or on movable parts to be made. Based on a new technique for printing with carbon nanotube pastes, stretchable active matrix displays containing integrated electronic circuits are now realized.

Although ultrasonic vibrations are known to be capable of aligning macromolecules in solution, the question of whether audible sound — which has much lower frequencies — can have such an effect is somewhat controversial. Now, however, it has been shown that supramolecular nanofibres can be preferentially aligned parallel to the propagation direction of audible sound.

A tubular assembly based on barrel-shaped chaperonin protein mutants, held together through coordination to magnesium ions, has been devised that carries and delivers guests into cells. The hydrolysis of ATP — present in much higher concentration inside the cell than outside — induces a conformational change in chaperonin that in turn triggers the guest release.

Magnetically induced phase behaviour in a soft matter system is of potential interest for magneto-responsive compounds. Here the authors fabricate a discotic ionic liquid crystalline hybrid material which can be switched from orthorhombic to cubic phase in the absence or presence of a strong magnetic field.

A particular liquid–liquid phase separation at a solid–liquid interface led to the unexpected partitioning of highly similar polymeric molecules into concentric circles.

Synthesis of a rubber-like material that can be recycled might not seem exciting. But one that can also repeatedly repair itself at room temperature, without adhesives, really stretches the imagination.

The self-regulation of self-assembled systems is well understood for non-responsive systems, but responsive systems are less studied. Here, the authors report the development of a stimuli-responsive, self-regulating assembly of chiral and magnetically responsive nanorods, with control over the chirality of the system.

GTP-triggered release from drug carriers has huge potential in cancer therapy but current carriers suffers from off target release due to ATP also acting as a trigger. Here, the authors report on the development of a microtubule capsule which is engineered to be responsive to only GTP not ATP and demonstrate targeted drug delivery.

Usually materials design focuses on attractive interactions, but here a hydrogel is described whose properties are dominated by electrostatic repulsion between negatively charged titanate nanosheets embedded within it; the material, inspired by articular cartilage, deforms easily when sheared parallel to the sheets but resists compressive forces applied orthogonally.

The temperature-mediated modulation of anisotropic electrostatics in response to changes of electrostatic permittivity in a hydrogel consisting of cofacially oriented electrolyte nanosheets imparts the hydrogel with actuation properties.

In the search to reduce our dependency on fossil-fuel energy, new plastic materials that are less dependent on petroleum are being developed, with water-based gels — hydrogels — representing one possible solution. Here, a mixture of water, 3% clay and a tiny amount of a special organic binder is shown to form a transparent hydrogel that can be moulded into shape-persistent, free-standing objects and that rapidly and completely self-heals when damaged.

Films based on π-stacked carbon nitride polymers are shown to bend rapidly and jump up to 10,000 times their thickness as a result of minimal variations—induced by changes in the ambient humidity or temperature—of absorbed water.

The realization of intrinsically stretchable organic photovoltaics with excellent mechanical robustness remains challenging. Here, the authors redistribute the strain in the active layer to PEDOT:PSS electrodes with simultaneously enhanced stretchability and interfacial adhesion in the device.

Vertical alignment of polymers on surfaces is challenging due to their flexibility and tendency to arrange on horizontal planes. Here, the authors report a design principle allowing polymers to be arranged into 2D homeotropic orientations by using long-range dipole-dipole interactions and hot-pressing on Teflon sheets.

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

The solvent-free conversion of phthalonitrile derivatives into phthalocyanines in the bulk is described, involving a reductive cyclotetramerization step and the formation of one-dimensional single-crystalline fibres. This solvent-free autocatalytic supramolecular polymerization may enable for a sustainable fabrication of multi-block supramolecular copolymers.

Tiny movable components could generate macroscopic mechanical motion if precise coherent operation can be exerted simultaneously. Here, the authors demonstrate this by using 10^10 pieces of colloidally dispersed nanosheets to generate wave under non-equilibrium state.

Built-in molecular motors in a porous crystal show unidirectional rotary motion fuelled by light.

Inorganic soft materials are an attractive concept but challenging to make. Here the authors have developed a hydrogel consisting of inorganic nanosheets (14 wt%) and water (86 wt%) that undergoes thermally induced reversible and abrupt changes in its internal structure and mechanical elasticity (23-fold).

If asymmetric catalysts were available by mirror symmetry breaking, an important insight may be given to how the biomolecular homochirality emerged in nature. Here, the authors report the first example of asymmetric catalysis by employing mirror symmetry-broken helical nanoribbons as the ligand.

An attractive feature of supramolecular polymers is their reversibility — they typically depolymerize upon heating. Now, in the presence of a scavenger molecule, a metalloporphyrin derivative bearing eight amide-containing side chains has been shown to undergo supramolecular polymerization on heating as well as cooling through π-stacking and multivalent hydrogen-bonding interactions.

Graphene possesses numerous interesting properties yet the preparation of pristine sheets has remained challenging, hindering practical applications. Now, a rapid, highly efficient step has been devised that uses microwave irradiation in oligomeric ionic liquids to exfoliate graphite into pristine ‘single layer’ sheets (<1 nm thick). A concentrated dispersion of the resulting material behaves as a physical gel.

Baird’s rule applies to cyclic π-conjugated molecules in their excited state, yet a quantification of the involved energetics is elusive. Here, the authors show the ring inversion kinetics of two nonplanar and chiral [4n]annulenes to support Baird’s rule from an energetic point of view.

Phenylene oligomers are shown to form left- and right-handed helices in solution, but a chiral symmetry-breaking process occurs on crystallization to give a non-racemic mixture of crystals that each contains only one enantiomer. One-electron oxidation of the oligomers suppresses the interconversion of the mirror-image helices in solution, locking-in one conformation and leading to chiral memory effects.

Soft building blocks tend to be near spherical, limiting their packing structures to those found in metallic systems. Here the authors report the spontaneous generation of highly deformed mesoatoms using molecular pentagons and observe Frank–Kasper phases not found in metal alloys.

Helical nanostructures often exhibit intriguing physical phenomena. Here, the authors fabricate a helical porous material exhibiting both controlled handedness and macroscopic orientation, which promises applications in a wide array of disciplines.

The Z phase, one of three fundamental Frank–Kasper phases—topologically close-packed structures commonly found in metal alloys—is associated with a relatively large volume ratio between its constituents. This means it is typically not formed in single-component soft materials. Now, a shape amphiphile has been shown to self-assemble in a variety of unconventional structures, including the Z phase.

Ferroelectric materials hold much promise for the development of devices such as nonvolatile memories, sensors and nonlinear optic materials. This Review describes the molecular features required to devise organic molecular ferroelectrics, and presents the supramolecular chemistry strategies available for controlling molecular organization and dynamics across different length scales.

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.

Pd complexes with diimine ligands promote controlled cyclopolymerization of 1,6-dienes and 1,6,11-trienes to afford the polymers containing 1,2-trans-cyclopentane groups with well-regulated stereochemistry. Copolymerization of the dienes with ethylene and α-olefins also proceeds to give functionalized polyolefins. The polymerization of the monomers with oligomethylene spacer yields the polymers with five-membered rings in accurate density and distribution along the polymer chain. 4-Alkylcyclopentenes and alkenylcyclohexanes also get polymerized by the Pd complex to afford polymers with 1,3-trans-cyclopentane groups and 1,4-trans-cyclohexane groups, respectively. Isotactic polymer of 4-alkylcyclopentenes show liquid crystalline properties.

Two specific concepts have emerged in the field of materials science over the last several decades: nanosheets and supramolecular polymers. Based on this background, supramolecular nanosheets, in which these two concepts are integrated, have recently attracted particular attention. This review focuses on design of two supramolecular nanosheets. One is tubulin protein-based supramolecular nanosheet for applications to GTP-responsive drug delivery system. The other is phospholipid-based supramolecular nanosheets and their applications in blood-administrated drug delivery systems.

Polyion complex (PIC) formation is one of the most powerful techniques for obtaining molecular self-assemblies in aqueous media, and useful for material syntheses particularly in the biomedical field. In this review article, recent progress on PIC vesicles (PICsomes) is summarized. PICsomes are characterized by their simple preparation, semipermeability and environment-sensitivity. Very recently, the methods to control structural uniformity and size of the vesicles have been established, and the potential utility of PICsomes has been expanded by crosslinking their PIC layers. In addition, the unique dynamic nature of PICs is also described.

Magnetic orientation of nanoscopic objects in dispersions and subsequent in situ polymerization produced anisotropic soft materials, in which highly oriented structures (order parameter = > 0.95) extended over a macroscopic size scale (~10 cm). The resultant materials exhibited unprecedented unique functions that are reminiscent of biological tissues, including ultralarge mechanical anisotropy, similar to articular cartilages, quick and large deformation, similar to muscular tissues, and dynamic structural color modulation, similar to the skin of tropical fish.