Volume 18 Issue 8, August 2023

The mounting environmental pressure on coral reefs calls for a rapid push towards innovative actions. Nanotechnology could help understand and protect present-day reefs to ensure their survival.

Nanotechnology is advancing at an accelerated pace in applications and novel nanomaterials. To become an enabling technology for a more sustainable society, we identify and assess nanomaterials and applications trends with potentially significant environmental implications.

The level of non-equilibrium activity of the cytoskeleton network at different time and length scales can be quantified by observing the bending dynamics of embedded nanotube probes.

In a simple two-probe device made of van der Waals dichalcogenide nano-flakes, two pathways are found to switch ferro-rotational domain states by application of a volt-scale voltage.

Coupling between electrons and water hydrons at the graphene–water interface provides a new way to cool heat in graphene.

A Berry curvature dipole can be generated at certain symmetry-mismatched van der Waals hetero-interfaces even though each material has no Berry curvature dipole in its band structure.

An automated system that couples microfluidics with plasmonic hot electron injection to accelerate colorimetric detection of DNA and RNA amplification is shown to achieve 95% detection accuracy in human saliva samples. This technique uses different amplification assays for pathogen identification and can differentiate between viral variants and subtypes.

The implementation of topological antiferromagnetic vortices in information storage devices requires an efficient method of nucleation and a way to control their movement. Here the authors find CuMnAs to be a suitable electrically conducting antiferromagnet host material for topological spin textures.

Domain wall formation and propagation using a small electric voltage are demonstrated in ferro-rotational 1T-TaS₂, although the ferroic order does not couple with electromagnetic fields, providing an opportunity for the manipulation and application of ferro-rotational order.

Intrinsic ferroelectricity in bilayer WTe₂ can be used for electrical switching of the centred-rectangular moiré potential in WTe₂/WSe₂ heterostructures.

The authors generate the Berry curvature dipole and valley-coupled spin photocurrent via interfacial symmetry engineering at the WSe₂/SiP heterostructure, and can electrically tune such nonlinear optoelectronic phenomena via the gate bias.

Photonic Dirac metasurfaces with smooth trapping potentials guide optical modes endowed with pseudo-spin. Such potentials give rise to different radiative properties of modes of opposite pseudo-spin.

Inspired by the visual systems of agile insects, Chen et al. emulate their graded neurons using optoelectronic devices to realize bioinspired in-sensor motion perception and demonstrate high recognition accuracy with limited computational resources.

Wearable resistive sensors for biometrics and machine interfacing are often non-specific. Here the authors report on the creation of hierarchically resistive skins for monitoring physical or physiological activities around the throat which, with the use of neural networking, can be used to distinguish different activities.

Ultrafast spectroscopy experiments demonstrate that graphene electrons can transfer energy directly to liquid water with no mediation from the crystal lattice as their collective plasmon oscillation excites water’s molecular charge fluctuations.

Non-equilibrium mechanical activity in active matter is quantified across spatiotemporal scales through time-reversal-asymmetry measurements of conformational fluctuations of carbon nanotube probes.

Microcompartments with a temperature-responsive membrane are used to stably localize DNA-encoded files, which enables parallel, repeated polymerase-chain-reaction-based random access and DNA file sorting using fluorescent barcodes.

Autonomous microfluidics with plasmonic hot electron injection accelerates colorimetric DNA/RNA amplification detection and rapid diagnosis of pathogens in patient samples on par with polymerase chain reaction.

Cancer resistance to apoptosis can hinder T-cell-based therapies. Here, the authors develop a temperature-sensitive system for the controlled delivery of a Cas9 gene-editing sequence targeting resistance mechanisms HSP70 and BAG3, which with a mild thermal effect increases T-cell delivery and therapeutic outcomes.

Optimizing the retention of drug delivery nanocarriers for improved cancer therapy has the potential to improve clinical outcomes. Here the authors screen 20 renal-clearable zwitterionic cyclodextrin-based nanocarriers for optimized biodistribution and tumour retention, demonstrating application in colorectal cancer models.

While engineered nanomaterials are relatively new, organisms have been exposed to natural nanoparticles over vast periods of time. Here the authors explore the possibility that common mechanisms of response to nanomaterials may have resulted from a long evolutionary exposure history to natural nano-sized matter.