Themed collection Nanoscale 2026 Emerging Investigators

This article focused on the key bottlenecks in the in vivo applications of AIEgens and systematically reviewed strategies for combining nanocarriers with them to address issues such as biocompatibility and biosafety.

Ultratrace PFAS detectors employing organic, polymeric, and nanomaterials transduce molecular recognition into optical, electrochemical, or resistive signals.

Programmable interlayer charge transfer in two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures underpins a wide range of emergent quantum phenomena, ranging from excitonic dynamics and light–matter interactions to various correlated electron states.

The value-added utilization of photogenerated holes.

Hydrogen spillover has emerged as a pivotal mechanism enabling the directional transport of active hydrogen species (*H) in electrocatalytic systems, providing a fundamental design strategy for advanced catalyst engineering.

This Minireview highlights the recent advancements, challenges and future prospects in the field of the application of functionalized graphene-family materials in cement composites.

This review focuses on retinal prostheses using energy-conversion nano/micromaterials (photovoltaic, piezoelectric, upconversion, and photothermal), which enable wireless/self-powered operation with advantages like high sensitivity and resolution.

We establish a unified framework showing how optical spectroscopies reveal the intricate coupling between quasiparticles, dimensionality, and interations in two-dimensional materials.

This review introduces key concepts and tools for modelling 2D magnets with DFT, covering magnetism basics, challenges like spin order, and methods to extract Hamiltonian parameters and critical temperatures for various anisotropies.

The growing demand for sustainable energy and environmental remediation has intensified the search for efficient, metal-free catalysts.

Nonoxidative coupling of methane to value-added hydrocarbons remains a major challenge in catalysis. Computational modeling plays a crucial role in uncovering the fundamental chemistry and guiding the design of efficient catalysts for this reaction.

This review summarizes electrocatalytic PET upcycling to C1/C2 oxygenates, covering PET depolymerization, EGOR pathways, catalyst design, paired electrolysis, plus outlooks on durability, separation, and system design.

Outlining programmable DNA-based biomaterials for precise immunomodulation within tumor and lymphoid tissues, activating antigen-presenting cells and T cells to drive synergistic antitumor immunity.

Carbolong metallaaromatics combine metal–carbon conjugation and Craig aromaticity, enabling efficient charge transport and photoresponsive functions in molecular electronics, photovoltaic devices, and photothermal materials.

Bioinspired multi-compartment mesoporous nanoreactors.

Biomacromolecule-regulated MXene composites form hierarchical structures with stable transport pathways, enabling multifunctional systems for EMI shielding, actuation, biomedicine, energy storage, electronics, and water purification.

This review is focused on non-traditional granular magnetoresistive (MR) sensors. It discusses the underlying physical mechanisms, material configurations, fabrication strategies, and MR device performance evolution over the past two decades.

Freezing of polymer solutions plays a central role in processes such as cryopreservation, porous material synthesis, and environmental remediation.

Strategies boosting AZIBs’ extreme-condition resilience via electrode/electrolyte/interface engineering, addressing dendrites, side reactions, and thermal instability.

This review summarizes the material properties, device structure, integration design, and the latest optical communication application scenarios of perovskite photodetectors.

By integrating material selection with structural design, tailored approaches can be applied to specific components to realize internal self-humidification functionality.

The five nanoparticles target the tumor acidic microenvironment through the mechanism of (1) ionizable groups and (2) pH-sensitive chemical bonds.

This review highlights recent progress in metal-organic chemical vapour deposition of wafer-scale 2D chalcogenides and future guidelines. Key topics include precursor chemistry, growth mechanisms, epitaxy, heterostructures, and doping strategies.

In this mini-review, we reviewed the role played by 2D materials as additives in PSCs and their effects on carrier transport and stability and put forward some prospects for the preparation of high-performance PSCs.

This review systematically reveals the in-depth relationship between doping strategies, property regulation, and functional applications as well as promotes more efficient applications of metal-doped MHP materials for photocatalysis.

Monovalent cations induce charge inversion in the TpPa-SO₃H membrane, enabling reversible cation/anion selectivity via synergistic pore–pore interactions at ultrahigh pore density and saturated ion adsorption in nanoconfined channels.

Coacervation induced the aggregation and fluorescence quenching of pyranine (PN) and sulphorhodamine B (SRh). Nanoscale confinement of PN and SRh within the coacervate phase enables efficient Förster energy transfer.

Magnetic-field-controlled phase separation in LPCMO dynamically shifts the interfacial barrier, offering a non-invasive route for amplifying carrier injection in hybrid organic/inorganic devices.

Structural distortions in Ag/Bi quasi-2D double perovskites are responsible for the unexpected trend in the exciton binding energies.

Ex-solved metal nanoparticles are anchored on solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) cathodes, enabling accelerated oxygen reduction rate.

Cascaded vdW heterostructure membranes convert light into built-in potential to drive directional ion transport for enhanced osmotic energy conversion.

Zn incorporated into Co layered (oxy)hydroxides modulates the electronic states of Co through Zn–O–Co bridging motifs. This induces an intermediate-spin state of the Co site, facilitating Co–oxo formation and boosting the OER performance.

The bis-salphen motif functions as a versatile building unit for heteroleptic prismatic coordination cages showing a ligand-dependent "on-off" emission behaviour.

Nernst-based thermodynamic screening identifies Cr₂S₃ as a low-potential anode material. Coupled conversion–alloying reactions enable high-voltage Na-ion full cells with enhanced energy density.

Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide-assisted synthesis yields mesoporous MnCoO_x spheres with superior activity and exceptional water resistance, enabled by Mn–Co synergy and abundant oxygen vacancies.

An InGaN/GaN multi-quantum-well LED array is designed and fabricated for use in high-speed multi-channel data transmission systems.

Ultrathin inorganic oxide coatings can improve selectivity in photo- and electrocatalysis, but they also bury active sites and impede transport of the desired reactants.

Hyaluronic acid (HA) hydrogels crosslinked through DNA hybridization (HA–DNA hydrogels) offer a programmable and cell-compatible platform for regenerative medicine.

PEDOT polymerized in the presence of two NCC allomorphs enables the development of sustainable hole-transport materials that can match the performance of PEDOT:PSS, addressing a key challenge for environmentally compatible optoelectronic devices.

Superlattice FinFETs, showing high performance and the capability for continuous scaling, are promising candidates for future logic devices.

We built a unified XPS and HAXPES reference library for Li, Na, and K battery materials, binders, and salts. Optimized preparation and selective Os coating suppress charging and provide reliable fingerprints for SEI and surface chemistry.

Ultracompact asymmetric nanogrooves integrated with GST.

A bilayer functional ionic wood heterostructure enables efficient triboelectric energy harvesting via strong polarization from oppositely functionalized cellulose nanostructures and rapid ionic charge transport.

For achieving enhanced hydrogen evolution activity, surface-carbon-modified porous ultrathin g-C₃N₄ nanosheets with high specific surface area, huge pore volume, narrowed bandgap and a more negative conduction band were synthesized via a CVD process.

Optical physically unclonable functions based on mechanically encoded strain-vector keys are demonstrated as practical identifiers and cryptographic keys for mutual authentication and image encryption.

Tunable cation vacancy engineering of FeP leads to a volcano-type HER activity trend. An optimal vacancy level of 16.2% maximizes active sites and *H adsorption for efficient HER, while excessive vacancies induce severe oxidation to impede the HER.

A surfactant-assisted impregnation strategy was developed to construct a heterogeneous catalyst of Ni/MgAl-SDBS with coexistence of Ni⁰/Ni²⁺ species, which efficiently transformed acetone into methyl isobutyl ketone with a high selectivity of 94.5%.

The strain effect, ligand effect, and multisite synergy of palladium-based polyelemental nanoparticles enhance their activity and durability for ethanol oxidation reaction.

Spatial lateral CO diffusion on micropatterned Ag/CuO arrays enables efficient C–C coupling for high-value CO₂-to-C₂₊ electroreduction.

Transitioning plasmonic chemistry from batch to flow, we show that controlled mass transport in a flow reactor unlocks hot-carrier transfer in gram-scale Au@Pd–Al₂O₃ catalysts, tripling Suzuki coupling and enabling scalable light-driven synthesis.

This study elucidates how functional property changes in printed sensors across multiple reuse phases and presents a surface-cleaning method for regenerating printable nanoinks.

We report the large-scale synthesis of ZnO-supported In single-atom catalysts using a micro-impinging stream reactor. The catalysts achieve high formate selectivity (85%) and outstanding long-term stability (>40 h) toward CO₂ reduction reaction.

Using DFT and global structure search, a new non-centrosymmetric Al₂O₃ is predicted. The structure can be tuned by using an external electric field. These results offer a pathway toward electric-field-gated non-volatile memory devices.

A hierarchical homometallic plasmonic Au_L–S catalyst enables precise dielectric matching for optimal carrier extraction and plasmon coupling capabilities towards light-driven plasmonic catalysis of nitrate reduction into ammonia.

Thin-film LaF₃ waveplates exhibit superior stability and low retardance drift under changing humidity compared with all-SiO₂ waveplates, supporting reliable high-power laser operation at a 266 nm wavelength.

Nickel hydroxide bifunctional electrocatalysts for sustainable green hydrogen production.

Aniline (PhNH₂) is usually prepared via the hydrogenation of nitrobenzene (PhNO₂) under high-temperature and high-pressure conditions.

By integrating sonodynamic therapy, asymmetric morphology-enhanced mobility, and NO-mediated multimodal thrombolysis, AB-LC effectively enhances thrombolytic therapy.

A flexible stretchable SERS hydrogel patch is developed by using self-assembled Ag nanoparticle films for metabolite sensing at bio-interfaces.

Master of Puppets: By forming adducts with the Indium precursor, triarylphosphines are able to exert control over InP QD formation, allowing targeted choice of QD size and their optoelectronic properties.

A benzoimidazoisoindolone-linked coplanar ladder polymer was rationally designed and exhibited a 2-times higher visible-light-driven photocatalytic water oxidation performance than its imide-linked linear analogue.

High-valence Ir single atoms were anchored on a NiS₂ support, which exhibited superior OER catalytic activity by lowering the energy barrier and accelerating the reaction kinetics in the OER process.

This work presents a flexible biosensor with independent pH and uric acid modules. The integrated real-time pH calibration corrects signal drift, enabling reliable uric acid detection in human serum.

Precise engineering of a CeO₂ layer (3–7 nm) on anisotropic Au nanobipyramids modulated the dielectric environment, achieving 56.2% photothermal efficiency at 1064 nm, and enabling effective tumor therapy.

Zn doping upshifts the O p-band center, strengthening TM–O bonds and stabilizing octahedral coordination. This mechanism enhances structural stability and capacity retention, providing a theoretical framework for high-voltage SLOC design.