Themed collection Nanoscale 2021 Emerging Investigators

Our inaugural Emerging Investigators collection gathers some of the best research being conducted by nanoscientists in the early stages of their independent career. Congratulations to all of the researchers featured.

Light-driven multi-charge accumulation (i.e., photodoping) of doped metal oxide nanocrystals opens the way to innovative solutions for the direct conversion and storage of the solar energy.

Recent design and applications of emerging genetically encoded RNA nanodevices in regulating cellular gene expression, imaging, logic operation, structural biology, and optogenetics.

Valley pseudospin of 2D transition-metal dichalcogenides is promising for information technologies, but its robust manipulation is challenging. This minireview highlights recent progress on using nanophotonic strategies to address this challenge.

Hierarchically constructed metal–organic frameworks and covalent organic frameworks toward emergent electrochemical applications.

Printing holds potential for low-cost and large-area patterning of thermoelectric materials. The process can be also engineered to induce morphological anisotropy in (in)organic materials, which boost the performance along a preferential direction.

Micro/nanostructured bioelectronic devices for various biofluid detection applications are systematically summarized and discussed with new insights for future health monitoring.

This review summarizes the recent advances of colour-tunable soft actuators, with emphasis on their colour-change mechanisms and highlighting their applications.

In this minireview, we summarize recent advances in electrocatalysis in confined spaces. Emerging electrochemical reactions are covered and discussed.

Metal and covalent organic frameworks (MOFs and COFs) are increasingly finding exceptional utility in electrocatalytic systems.

Photocatalytic hydrogen production from water has the potential to fulfil future energy needs by producing a clean and storable fuel. Here the discuss the recent advances in using nanosized materials as photocatalysts.

Hot charge carriers in graphene exhibit fascinating physical phenomena and have great promise for exciting optoelectronic applications. The current understanding of the relevant fundamental physics and the most promising applications are reviewed.

We provide a comprehensive review on the latest advances in three-dimensional macroscopic aerogels assembled from one-dimensional inorganic nanowires.

Self-limiting self-assembly supraparticles produce new nanostructures and display great priorities to create biomimicking nanostructures with desired functionalities.

We reviewed the recent research on information processing with the DNA toehold-mediated strand displacement reaction, including the basic principles and applications in logic circuit, analog circuit, combinational circuit, and information relay.

Research on liquid metals has been steadily garnering more interest in recent times, especially in flexible electronics applications because of their properties like possesing high conductivity and being liquid state at room temperature.

Self-powered chemical sensing via triboelectric nanogenerators is an emerging approach to continuous detection and analysis of chemical molecules on the human body and the surroundings.

Polymer nanocomposites are an important class of materials whose properties are generally tuned as a function of their composition. New opportunities for controlling these properties lie in manipulating the 3D organization of their nanofillers.

Nitric oxide (NO), as an endogenous diatomic molecule, plays a key regulatory role in many physiological and pathological processes.

Carbon-based materials (CBMs) have shown great versatility because they can be chemically combined with other materials for various applications.

Microbes employ a variety of strategies to adhere to abiotic and biotic surfaces, as well as host cells.

This article provides brief summary about advances of nanotechnology and nanostructures in hypoxia tumor therapy including hypoxia overcoming strategies and developments. The potential challenges and solutions for future research are also discussed.

An exclusive dual-mode sensing of TNT achieved using donor–acceptor emissive “exciplex liquids” is otherwise not possible using individual molecules or their corresponding solid counterparts.

Air-borne hydrocarbon contamination is investigated for slit-like angstrom-channels made from 2D-materials, using gas flow measurements. Our results constitute a new way to monitor, assess and alleviate the hydrocarbon contamination in nanochannels.

Organic long-persistent luminescence (OLPL) was achieved through photo-induced charge separation, charge accumulation, and emission from charge recombination. The presence of thermal activation processes in the OLPL system was confirmed.

Incorporating a redox active anthraquinone acceptor group to a polymer semiconductor is found to induce electrical bistability. Resistive memory devices based on the redox switch mechanism is thus materialized in a sandwich device.

Graphene oxide (GO) microfibers with controlled and homogeneous shapes and tunable diameters were fabricated using the 3 dimensional (3D) hydrodynamic focusing concept on a microfluidic device.

The CrGa₂Se₄ monolayer is predicated as a 2D spin-gapless ferromagnetic semiconductor, in which the type of spin conductivity with 100% polarization is sensitive to the gate voltage.

The optical anisotropy of layered perovskites is exploited in flexible free-standing polymer films through multiple stretch/release cycles at low tensile stress, to enhance the emission intensity of the resulting composites.

Dry coating of ultrastable Li₃V₂(PO₄)₃-carbon (LVP-C) nanoparticles on LiNi_0.6Co_0.2Mn_0.2O₂ (NCM622) leads to a robust composite cathode with improved rate capability and cycling life without sacrificing the specific energy density compared with pristine NCM622.

The study of composition-dependent electrocatalysis reveals that Ag₆₀Pd₄₀ alloy nanoparticles allow the selective reduction of furfural to furfuryl alcohol.

Surface modification of BaZrS₃ nanocrystals for colloidal dispersions and field effect transistors. A rare example of solution processed chalcogenide perovskite thin films.

A common, catalyst-free and facile synthetic approach is introduced for developing three distinct and extremely water repellent coatings that are embedded with different oil wettabilities in air.

We report here the first instance of nucleic acid nanostructures that contain 2′-5′ linkages and characterize structures of different complexities: a simple duplex to a 4-arm junction, a double crossover (DX) motif and a tensegrity triangle motif.

Flexible light weight In₂O₃-based source-gated transistors are achieved with high gain, fast saturation and low power consumption.

Ceria/bioglass nanohybrids significantly reduce bacterial survival inside human cells without harming the latter and overcome major shortcomings of conventional antibiotics.

Understanding the mechanisms for nanoparticle nucleation and growth is crucial for the development of tailormade nanomaterials.

Through targeted binding to the cell membrane, structural DNA nanotechnology has the potential to guide and affix biomolecules such as drugs, growth factors and nanobiosensors to the surfaces of cells.

Modeling physicochemical consequences of surface functionalization of metal oxide nanocrystals using polyoxovanadate clusters.

An electrochemical sensor comprised of cerium oxide nanoclusters grafted to a highly conductive carbon provided a limit of detection of 0.6 μM ˙OH and successfully detected in vitro the presence of ˙OH in preosteoblast cells from mouse bone tissue.

Colloidal Cu and Ag nanoparticles retain their shape during the CO₂ reduction reaction (−0.8 V vs. RHE) due to immiscibility of the lattices and synergy at the nanoscale results in enhanced methane and C₂ product formation.

We present a high-throughput study of the steady state Stokes shifts of >300 fluorescent DNA-stabilized silver clusters and the correlations of DNA sequence with the optical properties of these fluorophores.

We introduce pyrogallol end-functionalized telechelic PEGs that are crosslinked with di- or trivalent ions to result in self-healing, adhesive hydrogels whose mechanical properties can be varied over an unprecedented range.

A hydrophobic electrode surface was constructed by modifying the CuO nanowire electrode with a thick Nafion overlayer, which exhibited enhanced selectivity toward the CO₂ electroreduction reaction and suppressed hydrogen evolution activity.

Kinetics of polymer crystallization determines the liquid crystallinity of graphene oxide and its long range alignment.

High crystallinity, low oxide content, and low sintering lead to optimally performing mesoporous Si photocatalysts for solar-driven hydrogen production.

E-beam evaporated uniform 2D bismuth exhibits (thermo)electrical response tunable by either laser irradiation or the layer thickness.

Green and far-red-light induced electron injection from a higher excited state, which is quite short-lived, of perylene bisimide to wide bandgap semiconductor nanocrystals was achieved with a stepwise two-photon absorption process.

Elucidating the location of stabilized nanoclusters within their protein hosts is an existing challenge towards the optimized development of functional protein-nanoclusters.

Low-density lipoproteins (LDLs) reconstituted with a multifunctional mitochondrion-targeting photosensitizer are able to achieve fluorescence-feedback photodynamic therapy of LDL receptor-overexpressing cancer cells.

Kinetic pathways of triplet energy transfer from photoexcited PbS QDs to surface-anchored tetracene and pentacene derivatives are dictated by charge-transfer energetics at the QD/molecule interface.

Colloidal nanocrystals allow investigating sintering phenomena in supported catalysts.

A core–shell heterostructure consisting of plasmonic gold nanorods and porphyrinic metal–organic frameworks is synthesized as a promising platform to combine photodynamic therapy and photothermal therapy for enhanced tumor treatment.

Noble metal clusters have unique photophysical properties, especially as a new class of materials for multiphoton biomedical imaging.

An extended-gate organic field-effect transistor functionalized by a molecularly imprinted polymer was fabricated for selective and sensitive detection of taurine.

Lead-free perovskites and their analogues have been extensively studied as a class of next-generation luminescent and optoelectronic materials.

Paper based thermoresistive sensors are fabricated by rubbing WS₂ powder against a piece of standard copier paper, like the way a pencil is used to write on paper.

In this paper, six new atomic structures of thiolate-protected gold nanoclusters, i.e. Au₃₂(SR)₂₀, Au₄₀(SR)₂₆, Au₄₈(SR)₃₀, two Au₅₆(SR)₃₄, and Au₆₀(SR)₃₆, are predicted.