Themed collection 2025 Materials Horizons Most Popular Articles

Lost in translation: no targeted nanoparticle has reached the clinic due to poor targeting efficacy, and overcoming this will require rethinking pharmacokinetics, optimizing dosing regimens, and addressing issues like antigen depletion.

Beyond conventional design: unlocking thermoelectric potential for recuperating low-exergy industrial waste heat through high-entropy strategies and data-driven insights.

Introduction and review of work developing chirality in achiral plasmonic structures using only circularly polarized light to induce asymmetry, with a detailed introduction to chirality and light–matter interaction in molecules and nanostructures.

This review focuses on Kagome magnets, highlighting their lattice, rich electronic states and emergent quantum effects. It explores the synergy of topology, magnetism and correlations, and outlines future research directions in solid-state chemistry.

Significant advancements have been made in biochemical sensing, particularly in the design, development, and utilization of metallic nanoclusters and metal–organic frameworks as separate functional materials.

This review systematically examines the structural features, fabrication techniques, and applications of porous polymers, as well as their interrelationships, to serve as a guide for researchers.

Two-tier ML-DFT screening of millions of adsorption motifs on nanosized HEA particles uncovers scaling-breaking Au–Cu active sites.

Sulfur incorporation in MR-TADF emitters at a precise position achieves superior deep-blue OLEDs with record EQE and device lifetime.

Engineered nanomaterials integrated into photosynthetic systems could pave the way to new, exciting avenues towards biohybrid systems and renewable energy sources.

The suppression of heat transport in disordered crystals arises from a competition between mass fluctuations and bond disorder, but their relative contributions remain difficult to disentangle.

Ionically conductive bottlebrush ionogels enhance seamlessness between ultrasoft electronics and biological systems.

Machine learning-guided robotic synthesis enables fabrication of high-quality Cu₃(HHTP)₂ SURMOFs exhibiting intrinsic metallic conductivity—marked by increasing conductivity upon cooling—paving the way for investigating quantum phenomena in 2D MOFs.

A multilayered piezoionic sensor with positively and negatively charged surface layers enhances ion mobility and accelerates charge redistribution, leading to significantly improved sensing performance.

A liquid metal and silver flakes-based smart textile enables double-sided circuit designs without via holes. Pressure-controlled sintering allows dynamic insulation or interlayer connection, supporting reconfigurable wearable electronics.

The ultrathin AgNWs/PVA gel electrode with high stretchability, strong adhesion, and excellent air permeance to ensure stable, high-fidelity and long-term electrophysiological monitoring.

This work reported a universal and scalable assembly strategy to realize kinetically stable dispersion of micron-BN sheets (m-BN) and yield high-temperature-resistant m-BN based insulating papers with superior thermal conductivity.

This figure represents a droplet-templating approach for fabricating soft materials that serve as versatile templates, enabling the creation of compartmentalized, hybrid, or gradient structures which can be readily converted into aerogel beads.

We developed a fabrication method to achieve a record-high thermal conductivity of 13.5 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹ for electrically insulated polyethylene at a coverage area of 2.16 mm².

Environmentally tolerant multifunctional eutectogel crosslinked by interactions and electrostatic attractions is applied for wearable sensors with high sensitivity.

The chimney-assisted enclosed cavity structure significantly enhances water capillary evaporation and thermal localization, setting new performance records beyond those of traditional natural evaporators.

Oxygen vacancies were introduced to form a Schottky contact, redistributing the electric field in the BCZT-based multilayers. This improved the voltage endurance of BCZT/BCZT-OD//(1P), leading to an enhanced W_rec.

We developed a novel strategy for preparing conductive and tough hydrogels through in situ growth of metal dendrites within the gel. The resulting gel demonstrated outstanding conductivity, fracture toughness and fatigue fracture threshold.

Herein, printing a wide-meshed methacrylate matrix-assisted epoxide network utilizing alcohol chain transfer in a semi-orthogonal curing leads to tough interpenetrating networks much faster, at lower intensities and without layer artefacts.

The recent synthesis of goldene, a 2D atomic monolayer of gold, has opened new avenues in exploring novel materials.

Self-assembly in nano- to micro-fabrication is a frugal approach to advanced electro-optical devices.

An ultra-short peptide-based injectable hydrogel delivers doxorubicin (DOX) in response to the local glutathione (GSH). A single injection reduced the tumor volume by approximately 75% within 18 days without any side effects.

As a contribution to the field of hybrid materials and catalysis, this work is expected to stimulate further research, offering strategic advantages such as high performance, easy recovery, and reusability.

The meticulous adaptation of the selective binding sites into COFs enables the creation of effective adsorbent demonstrate ultrafast sequestration of bromine. The optimized COF adsorbent exhibited selective separation of bromine over iodine.

Unlocking longevity in solid-state batteries: our study highlights how the sulfide catholyte Li₆PS₅Cl outshines halide-based alternatives by mitigating side reactions in NMC811 cathodes, indicating its promise for extending battery lifespan.

In this study, we introduce a novel resistive strain sensor with high sensitivity, excellent linearity, and an ultra-low detection limit by simply modulating ohmic contact within pre-defined conductive cracks.