Themed collection Nanoscale Horizons Most Popular 2021 Articles

Beyond the usual surface-to-surface Planck's law of thermal radiation, nanoscale radiative heat transfer is experiencing a revolution.

The use of organic dyes, semiconductors, and plasmonic nanostructures are three of the most promising strategies to make lanthanide-doped nanoparticles brighter by means of increasing their absorption capabilities.

The nanoarchitectonics concept has the ability to bridge nanoscale science and visual size materials. The final goal of nanoarchitectonics approaches is the creation of living-creature-like functional material systems from simple nanoscale objects.

Nanochitin and nanochitosan are nanowhiskers combining the structural strength of nanocellulose with the versatile chemistry of chitin/chitosan. We review their fabrication, properties and uses, with a focus on recent progress.

This review describes state-of-art techniques and knowledge on the creation of high-performance heterogeneous catalysts using atomically precise metal nanoclusters.

By varying biophysical properties of drug-loaded liposomes such as size, head-group chemistry and polarity, fluidity, rigidity, and PEGylation, their effects on both passive and active targeting are reviewed with cancer therapy as the main example.

Low limiting potential, high product selectivity, strong visible light absorbance and satisfactory band edge positions make Cu₂S monolayers a very compelling photocatalyst for CO₂ reduction.

We show that thiol–ene-like “click” chemistry can be used to decorate franckeite, a naturally occurring van der Waals heterostructure with maleimide reagents. In this way, we provide a pathway towards 2D–2D–0D mixed-dimensional heterostructures.

A plasmon-based “stiffness nanoruler” paves the way for a cost-effective and high-throughput determination of the mechanical properties of synthetic and biogenic nanometric vesicles at a collective level.

Macropinocytosis inhibitory nanoparticles reduce non-specific uptake of an “effector” nanoparticle by cells of the mononuclear phagocyte system thereby, allowing for greater accumulation and uptake of targeted nanoparticles in tissues of interest.

Novel nanoMof (Tf-LipoMof@PL) can induce both ferroptosis and pyroptosis by iron and ROS enrichment, which provides new choices for anti-cancer therapy.

In breast cancer model, we identified C–C Motif Chemokine Ligand 2 (CCL2) as the key mediator which is secreted by tumor associated adipocytes, and developed targeted lipid-protamine-DNA (LPD) nanoparticles to locally “trap” CCL2 to ameliorate the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment.

Annealing core@shell nanoparticles (NPs) yields high-entropy alloy NPs. Owing to their dispersed Pt/Pd content and low elemental diffusivity, they exhibit enhanced electrocatalytic performance and durability for the oxygen reduction reaction.

Exploring the influence of interlayer interaction on SERS performance by using 2D PtSe₂ and ReS₂ with different numbers of layers as the research objects.

Recently, various efforts have been made to implement synaptic characteristics with a ferroelectric field-effect transistor (FeFET), but in-depth physical analyses have not been reported thus far.

An immunostimulatory nanoparticle was specifically designed to boost the local innate immune compartment of brain tumors leading to a robust antitumor immune response.

A simple π-conjugated oligomer nanotheranostic with intrinsic multifunctionality was developed for 808 nm laser-triggered effective NIR-II fluorescence/photoacoustic imaging and photodynamic/photothermal synergistic therapy.

At the nascence of a metal–polymer hybrid material primarily vertical Au dimers and free adatoms diffuse on and into the polymer matrix revealed in situ by sub-millisecond time-resolved surface-sensitive X-ray scattering (GISAXS).

A photosensitizer-based nanoplatform demonstrated amplified photodynamic immunotherapy by tumor microenvironment modulation.

Predicted ferromagnetic FeB₃ monolayer simultaneously possesses the high transition temperature and large perpendicular anisotropy, leading to great potentials in highly efficient spintronic applications.