Themed collection Most downloaded articles of 2017: Materials Chemistry and Nanoscience

Syntheses, properties and applications of fully conjugated ladder polymers are reviewed, together with an outlook to future opportunities and challenges.

This review summarizes what is known about the application of gold nanoparticles as an antigen carrier and adjuvant in immunization for the preparation of antibodies in vivo and evaluating their potential for the development of effective vaccines.

Recent advances in nanomedicine have shown that dramatic improvements in nanoparticle therapeutics and diagnostics can be achieved through the use of disease specific targeting ligands.

A new class of platinum(II) terpyridine complexes with a phosphole-derived bridging alkynyl ligand have been prepared.

New phosphine-based ligands and DFT calculations for defect-free conjugated polymers by direct (hetero)arylation polymerization (DHAP).

Introducing oligoaniline into a vitrimer resulted in a smart material that simultaneously responds to six different stimuli and performs six different functions.

A fluorinated indolo[3,2-b]indole (IDID) derivative is prepared as a crystalline hole transporting material for perovskite solar cells. A fluorinated IDID backbone enables a tight molecular stacking by π–π interaction. The device fabricated using IDIDF exhibits a PCE of 19%.