Volume 22 Issue 5, May 2023

A curvature-sensing peptide is used to disrupt exosomes for enhanced cancer immunotherapy.

Locally confined epithelial malignancies undergo a phase transition from a solid-like to liquid-like state, a process called unjamming, where associated chronic intracellular strain causes nuclear envelope rupture, leading to the emergence of pro-metastatic traits due to cGAS–STING pathway activation.

An optical spectroscopy approach unravels different layer-dependent correlated electron phases in a two-dimensional semiconductor heterobilayer.

Antiferromagnetism has a vanishing total magnetization and thus is extremely challenging to manipulate. Now, circularly polarized light is shown to efficiently detect, induce and switch a unique class of antiferromagnets.

Epitaxial topological heterostructures of (Bi,Sb)₂Te₃/graphene/gallium have been achieved using molecular-beam epitaxy, providing the opportunity to access Majorana zero modes in electrical transport when combined with van der Waals tunnel junctions.

Local vibrational modes at substitutional impurities in monolayer graphene are resolved with a sensitivity at the chemical bonding level, revealing the impacts of different chemical configurations and mass of impurity atoms on the defect-perturbed vibrational properties.

Research on two-dimensional van der Waals ferroelectrics has witnessed an explosion over the past few years. This Perspective formulates a framework by which results can be analysed, reviews recent progress, discusses mechanisms and properties for applications, and outlines challenges to be addressed.

Nanoscale ferroelectric topological solitons, such as polar bubbles, polar bubble skyrmions and hopfions, have garnered immense interest due to their emergent properties. This Perspective discusses how these structures form, advances in their study and how they can enable new devices and physics.

The discovery of ferroelectric switching in ultrathin layers of hafnium dioxide has aroused significant interest for low-power non-volatile memory technologies. This Perspective discusses how lessons learned from hafnium dioxide-based ferroelectrics can be applied to other applications, and other binary oxides.

This work reports on the synthesis and proximity-induced superconductivity in a topological insulator-based, thin-film heterostructure towards the development of a scalable material platform that could potentially support robust quantum computing.

We report both spin- and orbital-sourced Berry curvature in LaAlO₃/SrTiO₃ interfaces grown along the [111] direction.

The authors demonstrate control of antiferromagnetic order using helical light.

The authors address spin–orbit torques and magnetization switching in MnPd₃/CoFeB hetrostructures.

The authors report on the emergence of intercell moiré exciton complexes where, in H-stacked WS₂/WSe₂ heterobilayers, the exciton’s hole from the WSe₂ layer is surrounded by its bound electron’s wavefunction distributed among three adjacent moiré traps in the WS₂ layer exhibiting an out-of-plane dipole and in-plane quadrupole.

The authors demonstrate electrical on/off switching of interlayer interactions in tungsten diselenide/molybdenum disulfide heterobilayers, the phase diagram of which contains layer-dependent correlated regions that reveal the role of strong correlations in interlayer exciton dynamics.

Vibrational spectroscopy now allows for the exploration of lattice vibrational properties at the chemical-bond level, revealing the impact of chemical-bonding configurations and atomic mass on local phonon modes in graphene with a new level of sensitivity.

Liquid water reforming of methanol is a promising method for on-demand hydrogen production. An atomic-level catalyst design strategy, using synergy between single atoms and nanodots, is now shown to demonstrate a high quantum efficiency for hydrogen production.

Alternative solid electrolytes with enhanced thermal and chemical stability are key for advancing lithium batteries. A soft solid electrolyte with improved stability and ionic conductivity, overcoming several limitations of conventional materials, is now reported.

Soft porous crystals combine high crystallinity with structural transformability, potentially enabling applications. Here, an atropisomeric covalent organic framework is reported, which demonstrates different structural transformations upon exposure to different gases.

Tissue fluidification in invasive breast carcinoma is accompanied by mechanical stresses that compromise nuclear integrity and liberate DNA, resulting in the activation of a pro-inflammatory response that shape tumour evolution and progression.

A curvature-sensing antiviral peptide is repurposed to disrupt tumour-derived exosomes and used in combination with immune checkpoint blockade cancer therapy.