Volume 18 Issue 4, April 2023

High-T_c superconducting nanowire detectors can detect single photons of telecom wavelengths at a temperature of 25 K and may enable applications in quantum sensing and quantum information processing.

Combination of physical tissue expansion and super-resolution radial fluctuations achieves nanoscale resolution in pathology specimens with LED-based widefield microscopy.

Biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA) microplastics are shown to undergo enzymatic hydrolysis by lipases found in the human gut to generate PLA oligomers, which self-aggregate to form nanoplastic particles. The oligomers and their nanoparticles bioaccumulated in multiple organs of a mouse model and caused acute intestinal inflammation.

Aligning magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene to boron nitride layers introduces a gate hysteresis coexisting with its strongly correlated phases. This bistability enables electrical switching between superconducting, metallic and insulating states.

Complex clinical samples can be imaged with 25 nm resolution using a light-emitting-diode-based wide-field microscope.

Superconducting single-photon detectors are critical for quantum communication, fluorescence lifetime imaging and remote sensing, but commonly operate at very low temperatures. Now, high-temperature cuprate superconducting nanowires enable single-photon detection up to 25 K.

In-plane anisotropic exciton-polariton propagation in SnSe enables nanoscale imaging of the in-plane ferroelectric domains

A van der Waals contact approach enables the observation of photocarrier-induced persistent structural polarization in lead halide perovskites.

Metasurfaces can solve Fredholm integral equations of the second kind for free-space radiation at optical wavelengths. To this end, an inverse-designed metagrating is coupled to a semitransparent mirror providing feedback to perform an analogue version of the Neumann series.

Modulating the interaction of a thin film with microwaves is realized using the electrochemical behaviours of various MXenes.

A neuromorphic camera can localize single fluorescent particles to below 20 nm resolution and evaluate the diffusion trajectory with millisecond temporal precision.

Although conventional innate immune stimuli contribute to immune activation, they induce exhausted immune cells, resulting in suboptimal cancer immunotherapy. Now, a kinetically activating nanoadjuvant can dynamically integrate two waves of innate immune stimuli, in terms of the order, duration and time window, which results in effective antitumour immunity without immune cell exhaustion.

A large-scale pharmacophore model supported by in vitro ligand-binding studies suggests polylactic acid oligomer toxicity in a mouse model is due to the inhibition of matrix metallopeptidase 12.

Quantification of the accidental release rates of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) would inform risk management strategies and their implementation, but a comprehensive assessment of ENM accidental release is not currently available. Here the authors present a predictive study of the release of ENMs following accidents during their fabrication, transport and end-of-life processes in the next 10 and 30 years, based on conceptual models inspired by the nuclear power sector.