Themed collection Nanoscale Horizons 10th anniversary cover articles

We focus on the new horizons in operando/in situ characterisation techniques in electrocatalysis, providing a critical analysis of how advanced in situ techniques help us to deepen our understanding of reaction mechanisms and material evolution.

Nanotools in biomedicine open up novel applications in research, diagnostics, and clinical care.

The latest developments of NIR light-activated upconversion photocatalysts, and the in-depth mechanisms, prospects and remaining challenges with respect to fundamental investigations and solar energy conversion applications are discussed comprehensively.

Strain gradients in untwisted homo-bilayer graphene result in moiré superlattices. Force-field and DFT simulations reveal three kagome-like patterns with tunable electronic kagome bands near the Fermi level, extending moiré engineering beyond twist.

Grazing incidence single particle irradiation of a thin solid film of Buckminster fullerenes gives uniform, horizontally aligned nanowires exhibiting high electrical conductivity.

We present a cost-effective self-assembly method to fabricate low-density dimer NPs in an NPoM architecture, using the M13 phage as a spacer layer. This will enable the development of dynamic plasmonic devices and advanced sensing applications.

We demonstrate that the well-known green solvent ethanol is effective in producing large-scale and high-quality hybrid perovskites. This could represent a milestone toward commercial perovskite electronics.

We prove, in the first theoretical model, that unique boundary conditions and interlayer tunneling dominate the nature of electronic states in radial superlattices, leading to strongly momentum-dependent magnetoconductance modulations.

Two-dimensional ferroelectrics are core candidates for the development of next-generation non-volatile storage devices, which rely highly on ferroelectric stability and feasible approaches to manipulate the ferroelectric polarization and domain.

A new class of white luminescent materials, white-light-emitting graphene quantum dots (WGQDs), have attracted increasing attention because of their unique features and potential applications.

A novel dual chain-responsive thrombolytic drug delivery nanoplatform based on black phosphorus nanosheets was designed for thrombolysis.

The porous nature and tailorable host–guest interactions of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), cast into a 1D photonic crystal architecture, provide a versatile platform for specific and selective sorption, which can be exploited for chemo-optical sensing.

An effective, dry-climate natural plant-inspired approach for controlled surface engineering and liquid–solid interactions within graphene-based sub-micrometer confined spaces.

Peptidic nanofibers can provide convenience for administration, and facilitate the induction of multiple crucial immunities against HIV DNA vaccine, including polyfunctional T cell response, broad IgG subclasses response, and V1/V2 loop-specific antibody response.