Front Cover

In article number 2100943, Chang and co-workers developed a novel sodium cholate-mediated tissue clearing method, called SCARF. By adopting an ion-conductive film as the separation barrier, SCARF renders orders of magnitude faster tissue transparency and better immunostaining capability than conventional SDS-based methods. Thus, SCARF would greatly facilitate the 3D structural mapping of biological tissues in various clearing regimes.

Inside Front Cover

In article number 2101090, Chen and co-workers have developed the photopatternable color-converting cavity to realize ultrahigh resolution pixelated red, green, and blue quantum-dot (QD) LED arrays. By simply photopatterning the indium-zinc-oxide phase tuning layers, the cavity can selectively convert the unpatterned QD white emission as color-saturated and color-stable red, green, and blue emission with a resolution of ≈1700 pixel-per-inch and a color gamut of 111% NTSC. The demonstrated architecture could find potential applications in various displays ranging from cell phone to emerging virtual reality and augmented reality displays.

Inside Back Cover

In article number 2101296, Thommes, Barr, Mandel, and co-workers used spray-drying as a scalable process that enables one to assemble freely chosen nanoparticles into supraparticles, i.e., microparticles with adjustable nanostructure, in combination with atomic layer deposition to deposit controlled thin films of different materials onto and within supraparticles. The combination of these two techniques allows for the independent adjustment of properties determined by bulk and surface composition.

Back Cover

In article number 2101158, Shi, Yang, and co-workers report an engineering CXCL12 biomimetic decoy-integrated versatile immunosuppressive nanoparticle (VIN). VIN integrates inflammation tropism, peripherally inflammatory cells filtrate, brain-resident activated microglia polarization, as well as ROS scavenging. As a result, the VIN can promote outstanding therapeutic effects on ameliorating the mortality, reducing the infarct volume and protecting neurons post-stroke.

Flexible Zn–air batteries (ZABs) show applications on wearable electronical devices. The research on air cathodes, electrolytes, and Zn anodes of flexible ZABs is summarized in this review. This review further discusses the opportunities and challenges faced by the cathodes, electrolytes, anodes, and packaging technologies of flexible ZABs, and puts forward some personal perspectives on the development of flexible ZABs in the future.

This review demonstrates the latest progress in understanding the Li₂O₂ electrochemistry and the recent advances in regulating the Li₂O₂ growth pathway, including operation parameters, rational cathode structure design, catalyst surface engineering, electrolyte components, and so on. Further prospects of the solutions in developing advanced Li–O₂ batteries by control of favorable Li₂O₂ formation are highlighted.

Moiré fringe is a commonly observed phenomenon in physics, optics, and materials science. Creating moiré fringe via scanning transmission electron microscopy has been developed to image materials’ structures. In this review, the principle of this method is introduced, and its applications on investigation of strain, defects, 2D materials, and beam-sensitive materials are discussed.

The lateral flow assay (LFA) has received much attention in both academia and industry because of their user friendliness, low cost, and easy operation. Here, the progress achieved of quantitative LFA during the last decade is summarized, and a helpful reference for solving the problems encountered in the development of quantitative LFA devices is provided.

Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) remains the first choice for active delipidation in tissue clearing methodologies. Detergents that form smaller micelles and higher critical micelle concentration should perform better but these remain unexplored due to technical limitations. By combining sodium cholate and an ion-conductive film, SCARF overcomes these limitations, providing remarkably faster, superior tissue clearing and immunolabeling than SDS-based methods.

An engineering CXCL12 biomimetic decoy-integrated versatile immunosuppressive nanoparticle (VIN) is reported. VIN integrates inflammation tropism, peripherally inflammatory cells filtrate, brain-resident activated microglia polarization, as well as, ROS scavenging. As a result, the VIN can promote outstanding therapeutic effects on ameliorating the mortality, reducing the infarct volume, and protecting neurons post-stroke.

Ouzo Nanocrystallization

In article number 2100808, Liu and co-workers report the simple and novel approach of ouzo nanocrystallization for the synthesis of small and highly uniform organic nanocrystals with photoluminescent properties. The process of ouzo nanocrystallization helps in bringing the unique properties of organic dyes to real biomedical applications.

Nanocrystals have shown tremendous progress and great promises in biomedical, photocatalytic, and optoelectronic applications. Till now, methods available for the synthesis of polymer encapsulated nanocrystals are slow, lack controllability, and are not generic. In this study, we present the method of ouzo crystallization for fast, systematic, and controlled synthesis of small organic NCs (<100 nm) with high uniformity (PDI~0.1).

Advanced Metabolic Analysis

In article number 2101220, Qian, Fan, Jia, and co-workers have developed a nanoparticle enhanced laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry platform to record aqueous humor metabolic fingerprinting (AH-MF) of retinoblastoma (RB) with high performance. Early and advanced RB patients are differentiated by machine learning of AH-MF and identified biomarkers with area-under-the-curve over 0.9 and accuracy over 80%. This work will contribute to advanced metabolic analysis of eye diseases.

This work develops a nanoparticle enhanced laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry platform to record aqueous humor metabolic fingerprinting (AH-MF) of retinoblastoma (RB) with high performance. Early and advanced RB patients are differentiated by machine learning of AH-MF and identified biomarkers with area-under-the-curve over 0.9 and accuracy over 80%. This work would contribute to advanced metabolic analysis of eye diseases.

Current large-scale H₂ production requires robust and scalable size-sieving membrane materials for efficient CO₂ capture from syngas. This work innovatively utilizes the supramolecular polymer network structure with precise nanocavities in nanocomposite membrane design. It provides a seamless integration of the versatile processability and robust properties of amorphous polymers with sharp molecular-sieving abilities of porous nanoarchitectures for superior H₂/CO₂ separation.

Temperature-sensitive amino-AgInS₂ quantum dots (QDs) are grafted onto lipase via glutaraldehyde to form lipase-QD conjugates. With the addition of the substrate in lipase-QDs solution, the heat generated by the substrate decomposition in nanoscale is detected in real-time by the QDs, accompanied by a decrease in photoluminescence intensity, demonstrating the nano-microregions exothermic behavior of the enzymatic reaction in real time.

Herein, diffuser-based phase sensing and imaging, a quantitative phase imaging method for monitoring the advancement of surface modification reactions with sub-nanometric to nanometric precision is introduced. Its capacity to analyze grafting reactions is illustrated by performing and in-depth analysis of the photografting of aryldiazonium salts onto glass, revealing grafting regimes and extracting elusive physical and chemical parameters.

Unique cactus-like Ru/IrO₂ heterostructures achieved high activity and long-term stability toward the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which is not feasible with a simple alloy of Ru- and Ir-based electrocatalysts. The electron flow from the robust rutile IrO₂ to the highly active Ru effectively restrained the overoxidation of the Ru species into soluble species during the OER, leading to robust OER catalysts.

A flexible zinc–air battery enabled by dimethyl sulfoxide based organohydrogel electrolyte exhibits a remarkable charge/discharge energy efficiency of 74.2% and excellent antifreezing properties even at −40 °C.

Microwave boosts the ultrafast, universal, self-adjusted synthesis of metal-organic complex nanosheets with tunable compositions, which show great potential in lithium-ion batteries.

Combined theoretical and experimental analyses demonstrate the high reactivity and selectivity of CuO and Ni(OH)₂ toward the urea oxidation reaction (UOR) instead of the oxygen evolution reaction. The hierarchical structure creates a synergistic effect between the two highly active sites, enabling an exceptional UOR activity, which significantly advances energy-saving hydrogen production.

The defect-rich yttrium ruthenate oxides Y₂Ru₂O_7−δ (denoted D_rich-YRO) are fabricated by the liquid nitrogen (<−196 °C) quenching of Y₂Ru₂O_7−δ produced by calcination at 1100 °C. Rich defects—including oxygen vacancies, grain boundaries, pores, and surficial disorder—resulting from the instantaneous cooling process, are preserved in room temperature material and act as electrocatalytic active sites for oxygen evolution.

Novel hydroprinting technology to transfer ultrathin, transparent, and double-sided conductive/patterned nanomembranes for multiscale 3D conformal electronics is demonstrated via the fabrication of a functional film. The nanomembrane enables conformal contact with excellent step surface coverage of complex macro- and microstructures. The double-sided conductive nanomembrane enables wiring and layer-by-layer assembly regardless of the transfer direction of the surface.

A facile approach is proposed to realize the optical observation of suspended carbon nanotubes under optical microscopes with the assistance of smoke.

Acetaldehyde generator SC@ZIF@ADH based on Saccharomyces cerevisiae can cause a temulence-like reaction in the tumor and inhibit tumor progression.

Well-defined O-coordinated single-atom catalysts on integrated carbon nanotube arrays (CNT-O@M, M = Co, Pt) are synthesized by facial flame-assisted method, which shows excellent activities for ORR and HER with utilization of active site as high as 75.7%. The methodology and concept proposed in this work could be extended to the synthesis of a variety of integrated single-atom catalysts for efficient electrocatalysis.

The defect-rich NiS₂/MoS₂ nanoflakes (NMS NFs) have been successfully synthesized by a simple method. The NMS NFs present remarkable electrocatalytic performances, including the small overpotentials for the oxygen evolution reaction (270 mV at 10 mA cm⁻²) and hydrogen evolution reaction (90 mV at 10 mA cm⁻²), as well as a low voltage for overall water splitting (1.60 V at 10 mA cm⁻²).

A binder-free and high-loading sulfur cathode is developed via facile phase inversion and sulfurization for application in potassium–sulfur batteries without using a current collector. The hierarchical structure of the cathode enables favorable ionic transport; therefore, a high areal capacity is successfully exerted even at high loadings. Moreover, the porous structure buffers the volume change, and good cycling stability is achieved.

Ternary organic solar cells are fabricated by rationally selecting and incorporating the perylenediimide (PDI)-based nonfullerene acceptor, PDI-diketopyrrolopyrrole-PDI, as the third component into a model solar cell and their 3D morphology is qualitatively and quantitatively explored at the nanoscale by developing the new use of advanced characterization tools in the field of photovoltaics.

Single-cell antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) technologies have demonstrated unprecedented speed, but their clinical utility remains limited as most use devices that test only one concentration of one antibiotic. Here, a cascaded, assembly line-like droplet microfluidic platform is developed to perform single-cell AST against multiple antibiotics at the clinically relevant scale, thereby bringing single-cell AST technologies a step closer to clinical settings.

A epidermis-inspired wearable piezoresistive pressure sensors using reduced graphene oxide self-wrapped copper nanowire networks (CurGONW-SMPS) exhibit a high sensitivity, extensive sensing range, and good long-term stability. This CurGONW-SMPS can be used for real-time monitoring of human motions and subtle physiological signals.

An advanced Sm₂O₃/Ni-Sm₂O₃ core-shell homostructure material with high proton conductivity is developed for a low-temperature solid oxide fuel cell. The local electrical field created by the interface confines the proton migration on the surface layer with accelerated ion transmission and promoted proton diffusion kinetics. This presents a new understanding for proton transport in rare-earth metal oxides semiconductor materials.