Themed collection Materials Chemistry Frontiers Emerging Investigator Series

Magnetic transition metal halides possess rich chemical and structural diversity and thus offer a great opportunity for the search of new multifunctional magnetic materials and novel magnetic phenomena.

Programmable 3D shape morphing of stimuli-responsive hydrogels is of great interest for the fabrication of soft actuators and robots. The corporation of hydrogel matrices and functional additives is discussed in this review.

Polymeric nanomaterials with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristics have attracted significant attention from the scientific community because of their extensive biomedical applications.

A comprehensive and critical review of the emerging eco-friendly solar cells such as AgBiS₂ is presented with the goal of further advancing the photovoltaic performance and stability.

This mini-review summarises the recent advances in separation membranes based on porous organic molecular materials, an emerging subclass of porous materials.

This work summarizes the recent development of AIE probes to unveil intracellular processes, covering from intracellular microenvironment monitoring to tracing intracellular bioprocesses.

This review introduces the elementary properties of the GA-based perovskite and summarizes the development history of utilizing guanidinium materials in PSCs, along with proposing a perspective of future opportunities and challenges.

This review highlights the design of water-soluble fullerene derivatives, their cellular trafficking, and their applications in therapeutics and diagnostics towards various cell pathologies.

This review highlights the rational molecular structure design of mussel-inspired adhesive hydrogels and their applications in local immunomodulation.

In this review, the molecular design and stimuli-responsive approach of activatable NIR-II organic fluorophores are introduced. Their applications in biomedical fields, ranging from biosensing to bioimaging and theranostics, are also highlighted.

This review gives focused attention on in vivo anion imaging based on activatable organic photoacoustic probes, with emphasis on imaging mechanisms at the molecular level, to inspire innovative ideas for future theranostics of diseases.

The rapid advancement of nanomaterials has promoted the booming of nanozymes capable of mimicking natural enzymes.

Generating hydrogen from brackish or seawater could enable flexible energy generation, de-centralized electricity storage, and decreased reliance on energy-intensive water purification for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER).

Three n-type fused-ring small molecules with different shapes are synthesized. Changing the backbone shape is found to affect the energy levels, molecular conformation and packing ordering, leading to different charge transport properties.

An organic sonosensitizer bearing a low-energy gap and aggregation-induced emission features was constructed for efficient tumor therapy based on ultrasound irradiation triggered-ROS generation.

Deep-red (DR)/near-infrared (NIR) emitters have extensive applications in bioimaging and flexible optoelectronics.

A universal plasma-assisted strategy is proposed for the fabrication of rare earth-doped FeP as a kind of potential electrocatalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction.

Reversible binding of cell-targeting motifs by natural glycopeptide recognition technology to achieve cell-specific capture and isolation is of significant importance in the field of single-cell analysis.

An underlayer engineering strategy was developed by introducing octadecanammonium iodide (ODAI) as a crystallization buffer molecule to release residual strain for efficient tin perovskite solar cells.

The electrocatalytic nitrate reduction reaction (NO₃⁻RR) provides an effective route for removing NO₃⁻ from wastewater and converting it to valuable ammonia (NH₃).

By applying a LiF-rich in situ solidified Li⁺-conductive interlayer, the interfacial contact and charge transfer stability between LPS and Li metal are notably improved, which leads to dendrite-free Li plating/stripping at the interface.

Interfacial redox reactions are important in corrosion and catalysis, but traditional electrochemical methods cannot be used in non-conducting environments. A turn-on fluorescent dye can sense these reactions in non-aqueous solvents.

Ionic polyamide-stabilized ruthenium nanoparticles for ultra-efficient reductive amination of carbonyl compounds to primary amines with NH₃ and H₂.

A characteristic Raman peak is identified as the fingerprint to study the enhanced el–ph coupling in vanadium-doped WS₂. Vanadium atoms cause an n- to p-type transition and make ionization scattering dominate the carrier transport process in V-WS₂.

2D Al-TCPP MOF nanosheets were prepared via a simple solvothermal synthesis method without the need for any surfactants and were found to be an effective sonosensitizer for sonodynamic cancer therapy.

Tetraazaanthraquinodimethanes can exhibit various colours and emissions depending on their multiple conformations, such as not only folded and twisted forms but also intermediate structures, e.g., planar and twisted-folded forms, in pseudopolymorphs.

Carbon-based CsPbI₃ perovskite solar cells (C-PSCs) have attracted much interest due to their high chemical stability.

Emerging lead halide perovskite quantum dots (QDs) have attracted great research interest relative to conventional metal chalcogenide-based QDs for applications like solar cells.

Vapochromic π-conjugated polymer thin films showing a reversible color change were prepared. Reversible coordination-number control of hypervalent tin(IV)-fused azobenzene moieties between five and six triggered tuning of the electronic properties.

A universal exciplex platform was reported to construct multifunctional luminescent materials, including thermally-activated delayed fluorescence (TADF), persistent room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) and mechanoluminescence (ML).

We formalized a unique working mechanism – internal conversion to a dark state (ICDS) to rationalize the fluorogenicity of the tetrazine-fused fluorophores with integrated π-conjugations.

High-performance red and NIR organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have been achieved using highly robust and phosphorescent diplatinum(II) complexes featuring strong intramolecular Pt–Pt and π–π interactions.

The protein aggregation is successfully monitored using the intrinsic abnormal visible emission at the clustering state, namely clusteroluminescence (CL).

Selective growth of Pd and Pt on the edges of Au(111) supported FeO islands was observed. The complicated interfaces formed in selective growth raise a platform for the research of edge involved catalytic reactions.

This work not only reports Bi³⁺ and/or Ln³⁺ doped LiLuGeO₄ storage phosphors with excellent charge carrier storage capacity for information storage, but also deepens our understanding on afterglow and storage phosphors and luminescence mechanisms.

A cationization and cyano introduction molecular engineering strategy is reported to develop AIE-active photosensitizers for high-efficiency PDT eradication of drug-resistant bacteria.

The porous carbon embedded with hollow cobalt oxide nanoparticles was prepared via a spray-drying method followed by carbonization, which endows rechargeable zinc–air batteries with the improved bifunctional catalytic activity.

Cyanostilbene and naphthalimide are incorporated to construct novel dual-state emission luminogens (DSEgens), which show highly efficient photoluminescence and two-photon absorption properties in both dilute solution and the aggregated state.

Flexible manufacturing of holographic polymer nanocomposites has been realized by the synergy of hydrogen bonding networks with thiol–ene click reaction, which allows for the reconstruction of polarization-sensitive 3D images for advanced security.

Free-standing FeF₃@C attained via in situ etching and gas fluoridization. Due to the nanoarrays structure, this cathode effectively moderated volume fluctuation and enhanced diffusion kinetic, thus attaining superior electrochemical properties.

We report the synthesis and analysis of a series of conjugated ladder-type heteroarene model π-donor compounds, followed by computational and experimental mechanistic investigations of their π–π interactions and doping processes with the electron-deficient dopant F₄TCNQ.

The self-assembly via the cation–π interaction is a promising method for the synthesis of ordered supramolecular systems. Here, we propose a cation–π-based “sandwich”-like binding pattern to prepare an ordered and stable 3D supramolecular polymer.

A hybrid supramolecular system containing redox compartments has been successfully developed for visible-light-driven overall water splitting in the ambient environment.