Themed collection 2021 Materials Horizons Advisory Board collection

Highlighting the members of the Materials Horizons Advisory Board.

In-depth discussion on recent progress of fundamental understanding of AIE mechanisms, identifying the existing challenges and opportunities for future developments.

This review summarizes the recent progress in a novel route to both synthesize and process complex and multi-component materials as thin films, based on interfaces between immiscible liquids, highlighting different materials and applications.

This review revisits the state of the art of research efforts on the design of mechanical materials using machine learning.

This review summarizes the crystalline features, electrochemical characteristics, ions intercalation charge storage mechanisms, and recent advances in niobium pentoxide related materials for high-rate electrochemical energy storage.

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate), PEDOT:PSS, has been widely used as an effective hole transporting material in many different organic semiconductor devices for well over a decade.

A systematic comparison between electrochemical and organic bioelectronic sensors reveals a unified rational description for a transistor amplified detection.

The state-of-the-art developments in the photocatalytic reduction of N₂ to NH₃ are presented by classifying the photocatalysts based on chemical composition. Additionally, the correlation between the modification of catalysts and their photocatalytic activity is highlighted.

A living therapeutic system based on attenuated Salmonella was developed via metabolic engineering using an aggregation-induced emission (AIE) photosensitizer MA.

A molecular rotor probe TPAE2 was developed for dynamic and in situ monitoring of membrane damage using a membrane-to-nucleus translocation strategy.

Large amplitude motions in molecular solids are responsible for anomalous electrical characteristics in amphidynamic crystals. Here we explore the implications for charge transfer excitons photophysics.

A red quantum-dot light-emitting transistor with an EQE of 22.8% and a field-effect mobility of 3.1 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ is demonstrated.

Recombination to donor and acceptor triplet states should be energetically favourable. However, this recombination channel is not observed in operational devices.

The crystallization and film formation of organic semiconductors are controlled by the meniscus shape during meniscus guided coating for field-effect transistors.

Electrospun fibres from the non-conjugated polymer polyacrylonitrile are aligned by heat-stretching. These aligned fibers emit polarized blue fluorescence and green phosphorescence.

A bacterial metabolic probe with AIE characteristics shows great potential in in vivo light-up imaging of bacteria and antibacterial therapy.

Reduced electron trapping by a quantum dot using a thin polystyrene (PS) insulating shell with controllable thickness.

A self-healing hydrogel with a triple network structure and pressure sensitive photoluminescence for remote force measurement and healing assessment was successfully fabricated.

Heterostructuring of different transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) leads to interesting band alignment and performance improvement, and thus enables new routes for the development of materials for next-generation semiconductor electronics.

Dual-targeted organic nanoparticles efficiently target the margin of glioblastoma and successfully suppress the tumour growth through photothermal therapy.

Accurate molecular modeling reveal the surprisingly large impact of the solid-state environment on the electron acceptor levels of molecular dopants.

A new approach to design hierarchical materials using convolutional neural networks is proposed and validated through additive manufacturing and testing.

Energetic disorder is crucial to consistently model both absorption and photoluminescence spectra of charge transfer states in organic solar cells.

A superhydrophilic surface decorated with 2D hydrophobic water barriers is proven to be a potential platform for unidirectional liquid transport.

Human ability to discriminate between hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces is attributed to differences in vibrational frequencies generated while sliding at particular velocities and normal forces.