A WashU researcher says “criticality” is the key to understanding how the brain works — and how to keep it free from Alzheimer’s and other diseases.

More pathways than previously thought can lead to optical topological insulators, materials with exciting properties that could have future applications in lasers, imaging devices and more, according to research from the University of Michigan.

In an elegant fusion of art and science, researchers at Rice University have achieved a major milestone in nanomaterials engineering by uncovering how boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) — touted for their strength, thermal stability and insulating properties — can be coaxed into forming ordered liquid crystalline phases in water. Their work, published in Langmuir, the premier American Chemical Society journal in colloid and surface chemistry, was so visually striking it graced the journal’s cover.

Perovskite solar cells have emerged as a lower-cost, higher-efficiency alternative to traditional silicon solar cells due to their material structure and physical flexibility. Their large power conversion efficiency rate makes them well suited to converting lower light sources into energy. In APL Energy, researchers in Taiwan created perovskite solar cells that effectively convert indoor lighting into electrical power. They tuned the bandgap of the composition of the perovskite and their strategy for passivating the perovskite layer, which makes it less susceptible to corrosion, also improved the overall stability.

Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, have created a specially designed “bottlebrush” polymer that was used to produce a reaction space the size of a single molecule. This space acted as a nanoscale vessel to allow new materials, such as specialty polymers, to be created under highly controlled conditions. The technology has applications in advanced technologies such as drug delivery and remote sensing.  

Opioids like fentanyl, morphine and oxycodone are the drugs most linked to overdoses in the U.S. Typical screening methods for drug usage involve collection of blood, saliva or urine samples. Now, in ACS’ Analytical Chemistry, researchers demonstrate a pen-like tool that can quickly and non-invasively collect molecules from the skin’s surface to be screened for opioids with mass spectrometry.