Themed collection Recent Review Articles

Recent progress on nickel phthalocyanine-based electrocatalysts is reviewed, focusing on their specific strategies, structure–performance relationship and CO₂-to-CO reaction mechanism.

The integration of low-dimensional nanomaterials into direct ink writing (DIW) 3D-printed micro-supercapacitors (MSCs) represents a groundbreaking approach in developing high-performance energy storage devices.

The technique of Scanning Electrochemical Cell Microscopy (SECCM) has been expanded in recent years, with new categories of materials being tested, implementation of new instrumental capabilities, and the rapid adoption of the technique worldwide.

This minireview highlights the recent advances in defect modulated electrocatalysts and the promotional role of defects in the OER.

Harnessing the power of mesoporous silica to encapsulate organic fluorescent dyes has led to the creation of an extraordinary class of nanocomposite photonic materials.

The application of metal phosphides from the aspects of characteristics, material structure design, and material interface control. Enhancing the understanding of the operational mechanism and providing guidance for the development of Li–S batteries.

This review highlights recent advancements in the development of lanthanide (Ln³⁺)-based nanothermometers, focusing on those operating in the near-infrared (NIR) spectral region and outlining key findings as well as remaining challenges.

This article provides a review of various emerging micro/nanomotors utilized for neural modulation in recent years, with the aim of inspiring readers to explore broader biomedical applications of micro/nanomotors.

This minireview outlines recent progress in synthetic strategies, photophysical, surface reactivity, and catalytic properties of Ag(0)-containing ligand-protected atomically precise silver nanoclusters.

Nanoelectrocatalysts with optimized chemical composition, structure, and integration methods can reduce reaction activation energy, improve electrolyte mass transfer, and thereby enhance the power output of redox flow batteries.

This minireview explores the unique properties and potential applications of bismuth oxychalcogenide nanosheets in chemical and biological sensing, and photodetection.

This review focuses on all substances that are regarded as cluster materials and makes a new attempt to provide a comprehensive understanding through categorizing and summarizing clusters based on their constituent elements in the periodic table.

This work shows that cation disorder is a key tuneable parameter that can improve the optoelectronic properties of emerging solar absorbers.

Artificial switchable catalysis is a new, rapidly expanding field that offers great potential advantages for both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalytic systems.

Dendrimers and dendritic NPs are emerging as potential nanoplatforms for cancer immunotherapy. This minireview provides an updated overview of dendrimer conjugates, dendritic hybrids, and dendron-based copolymers for targeted therapy.

Supramolecular design principles are emerging as a powerful tool to manipulate organic cathode performance. In this review, we discuss how supramolecular interactions influence electrode behavior.

This mini-review highlights recent materials design strategies to alleviate distortive phase transformations in vanadium pentoxide materials for energy storage applications and characterization methods.

An overview of the strategies, progress, mechanisms, and prospects of chemical treatments to passivate the defects and improve the optical and electronic properties of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides.

This minireview covers recent advances in photoelectrochemical hydrogen production using I–III–VI QDs, detailing the material design strategies.

Enhanced by diverse color sorting techniques and deep learning, color routing at the nanoscale shows great potential in the image sensing field.

Research work in light control of droplets is summarized from three aspects: underlying mechanism of light control of droplets, smart material design for light control of droplets, as well as the diverse applications of light control of droplets.

This review focuses on the study of encryption, multiplexing and demultiplexing of vortex beams based on nanostructure platforms.

This minireview summarizes the utility of integrating nano-delivery systems with TCM, emphasizing their capacity to enhance treatment efficacy, modernize TCM, and expand global accessibility.

In this work, we focus on perovskite–organic tandem solar cells (PO TSCs) with advantages in device performance, manufacturing cost, and diverse applications and conclude the critical factors influencing the future development of PO TSCs.

The emergence of genetically engineered extracellular vesicles has marked a new epoch in cancer immunotherapy, presenting substantial clinical potentials.

This review introduces the modified methods of engineered EVs, summarizes the application of engineered EVs in preclinical and clinical trials, and discusses the opportunities and challenges for the clinical translation of surface-engineered EVs.

The recent development of lattice engineering, including lattice strain and lattice symmetry, in noble metal–light nonmetal binary nanocompounds and some of the core–shell nanostructures derived from them are discussed.

This review aims to outline future directions of the transfer techniques of graphene films, focusing on the application-specific transfer techniques, “all-dry transfer” compatible for batch transfer, and several new possible transfer-related applications.

We highlight the recent advances, discuss challenges, and propose future opportunities in nanomedicine-based strategies centered around macrophages for enhanced cancer immunotherapy.

Framework nucleic acid nanomaterials possess excellent antioxidative and anti-inflammatory therapeutic properties through scavenging reactive oxygen species.

A comprehensive overview of the recent progress in synthesizing novel nanomaterials using Ga-based liquid metals as reaction media, detailing related properties, synthetic methods and future directions.

This minireview summarizes recent applications of machine learning interatomic potentials for predicting the stability and structures of solid-state surfaces.

The peripheral nervous and muscular system, a cornerstone of human physiology, plays a pivotal role in ensuring the seamless functioning of the human body.

This review aims to summarize the timely progress of manufacturing high-performance nanocellulose-based fibers using wet spinning process.

Raman line shapes depending on the excitation wavelength is one of the confirmations for the presence of Fano resonance in any material, but the same is often not clearly visible in low dimensional materials owing to several system-specific reasons.

This minireview examines how the interfacial liquid, comprising water molecules and ionic species, profoundly impacts key electrochemical reactions: HER, OER/ORR, and CO₂RR/CORR.

This mini-review highlights advances in multi-dimensional carbon electrodes with bio-inspired principles for metal-ion batteries.

This minireview focuses on wafer-scale synthesis of single-crystal 2D van der Waals thin films such as graphene, hBN and metal chalcogenides, summarizing the state-of-the-art synthesis routes, discussing the current challenges and future outlook.

In this review, the basic principles of plasmon-enhanced SHG, different methods to enhance the SHG intensity of metal nanostructures, and related applications of SHG based on metal nanostructures are introduced.

This minireview aims at highlighting the most recent advances in the production of electrocatalytically active nanomaterials and their applications in organic catalysis.

This minireview summarizes the most recent developments in live-cell RNA imaging technologies in mammalian cells.

This work provides a mini review on the state-of-the-art modelling and simulation of coalescence kinetics and mechanisms for metallic nanoparticles, including nanoparticles with the same and different elements, alloys and metal oxides.

New concepts, strategies, and latest developments of in-plane Zn ion hybrid MSCs as well as key challenges and future directions have been highlighted, which provides new insights into several kinds of emerging miniaturized energy storage devices.

This minireview concisely but comprehensively summarizes recent advances of bio-organic frameworks (BOFs) including their synthesis strategies and diverse applications.

This minireview focuses on single-atom doping effects on thermal catalysis, electrocatalysis, and photocatalysis of atomically precise gold or silver nanoclusters.

The localized pH determination method is highly desirable to understand and control the local pH effects in CO₂ electroreduction.

Current advances in designing stimuli-responsive core/shell nanoparticle assemblies focus on reversible nanoparticle surface chemistry and experimental methods for air/liquid, liquid/liquid, and polymer interfaces.

Two-dimensional materials with various electronic properties were utilized as electrodes, interlayers, and catalysts in catalytic electrodes for the hydrogen evolution reaction.

This mini-review highlights the most recent advances in the design and application of synthetic nanoscale constructs that utilize biomacromolecular ligands (peptides, nucleic acids, carbohydrates) to target and cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB).

CO₂ electrolysis to multicarbon products can be promoted by tandem catalysis. Here we provide an overview of different effects at a range of length scales to identify how catalyst and device design can promote C₂₊ selectivity.

Researchers have made a significant breakthrough by merging the energy-saving attribute of organic solvent nanofiltration with the remarkable solvent permeance and solute rejection of two-dimensional (2D) laminated membranes.

This review highlights advances in 3D MIEC scaffolds for Na metal anodes. It delves into the regulation of Na deposition behaviors, the improved kinetics, and the pivotal role of MIEC scaffolds in stabilizing the electrode-electrolyte interface.

Biosensors are widely applied in biomarker detection. Their widespread use necessitates regeneration methods to ensure cost-effectiveness and sustainability. This mini-review systematically summarizes recently reported regeneration techniques.

In this review, we provide a comprehensive overview and analysis of the current advancements in nanomedicines for targeted pulmonary delivery.

Building C–N bonds via electrochemical NO_x reduction provides an attractive strategy to upgrade waste NO_x species into valuable organonitrogen products. Here we review the recent advances and highlight the key strategies and challenges in this area.

This minireview presents the recent progress on organic nanomotors using stimulus-responsive organic fuels/engines as organic kinetic systems.

As a promising prophylactic and therapeutic strategy, polypeptide-based mRNA delivery systems attract significant interest because of their low cost, simple preparation, tuneable sizes and morphology, biocompatibility, and biodegradability.

CQD–polymer composite structure for enhanced self-healing and shape memory characteristics.

This minireview highlights recent advancements and perspectives on the electrochemical CO₂ reduction reactions (CO₂RR) in acidic environments, covering strategies from the nanoscale to the bulk scale.

This review summarizes the classifications, advantages, and applications of nanodiscs in disease therapy.

The effects of short-range order (SRO) on defect behaviors in high entropy alloys with examples of vacancy migration and dislocation slip. SRO introduces excess energies that are not present in random alloys which impacts the defect metallurgy.

This article reviews the general principles and strategies for constructing protein-mineralized nanomaterials (PMNMs). Subsequently, the progress of PMNMs in bioimaging, anti-tumor, anti-bacterial, and anti-inflammatory therapies is summarized.

With the rapid evolution of sensing technologies, the integration of nanoscale catalysts, particularly those mimicking enzymatic functions, into electrochemical devices has surfaced as a pivotal advancement.

Biotin-functionalized nanoparticles enhance cancer detection by targeting biotin receptors, which are overexpressed on cancer cells. This targeted approach improves imaging accuracy and efficacy in identifying cancerous tissues.

Progress in the study of MXenes for electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction.

Summarized the energy storage mechanism and advantages of COFs and COF composites as electrodes, separators, and electrolytes for rechargeable batteries.

A comprehensive review on SERS and imprinted polymer platforms in mercury detection, and a perspective on integrating the two for an improved analytical method.

This review summarizes how aptamers (chemical antibodies) at the molecular level propel the advancement of the application of nano-scaled extracellular vesicles in nanotechnology and medicine, highlighting the latest developments since 2023.