Researchers achieved a milestone in the synthesis of multifunctional photonic nanomaterials. They reported the synthesis of semiconductor 'giant' core-shell CdZnSe/CdS quantum dots with record breaking emissive lifetimes. Furthermore, the lifetimes can be tuned by making a simple alteration to the material's internal structure. These new particles have great efficacy for fundamental biological discovery as they emit...
Recent investigations suggest that topological semimetals reveal unique properties that can enable unprecedented functionalities for future electronics. New research results shed light on the specifics of electron transport in quasi-one-dimensional topological Weyl semimetals and can be important for their proposed applications as downscaled interconnects. The results obtained in this work can be used for developing...
Molecular energetic ferroelectric crystals are chemical energy materials with external stimuli-dependent energy release. Researchers now report the controlled chemical energy release from spatially programmed molecular energetic ferroelectric crystals. Such stimuli-controlled metamaterials (in this case, energetic ferroelectrics), could potentially provide a pathway towards the controlled release of chemical energy...
The discovery of magnetism in two-dimensional (2D) ultrathin crystals opens up opportunities to explore new physics and to develop next-generation spintronic devices. However, 2D magnetic semiconductors with Curie temperatures higher than room temperature have rarely been reported. Researchers now show that high-quality, nonlayered cobalt ferrite nanosheets as thin as a single unit cell can be synthesized via van...
Its significance of the protein corona for biomedical applications lies in its role of imparting a unique biological identity to the nanoparticle, which could be very different from the pristine nanoparticle surface. Robust characterization of the identity and abundance of the protein corona is entirely dependent on liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectroscopy. Unfortunately, the variability of this technique...
The 1T polymorph of TaS2 is one of the prominent members of the quasi-2D van der Waals materials that reveal several charge-density-wave (CDW) phase transitions in the form of resistivity changes and hysteresis. However, despite numerous attempts, the electrical gating of the CDW phase, which is needed for many practical applications, has remained elusive - until now. Researchers report electrical gating of the CDW...
Near-infrared photodetectors play a significant role in many aspects of research and daily life and twisted-angle-induced unusual electrical and optical properties in van der Waals homostructures have received extraordinary attention recently. However, these emerging properties have rarely been applied to optoelectronic devices. Here, researchers demonstrate broadband photoresponse capable of overcoming the band-gap...
Artificially engineered chiral materials with exceptional light-manipulating capabilities show significantly enhanced chiroptical response and capability of light manipulation, which have emerged as a promising chiral platform for applications in biosensing, catalysis, and photonics. Scientists now report a novel class of chiral materials called bichiral nanoparticles that can easily tune the sign of circular dichroism...
In an effort to reduce the size of optical spectrometers, researchers have been working on developing miniature on-chip spectrometers that could be integrated into small handheld devices or even smartphones. Now, reducing the size down to the micrometer scale, researchers have developed a single-dot spectrometer based on an in situ modulated perovskite photodetector. The device is enabled by photogain manipulation...
Researchers demonstrate a multitarget real-time trajectory tracking system by using a time-division position sensitive detector (TD-PSD) system by employing a graphene-silicon Schottky heterojunction. The system allows for multi-target real-time trajectory tracking with a maximum image output frame rate of up to 62 000 frames per second (which is superior to commercial optical high-speed motion capture systems of...