A recent study published in Physical Review Letters and carried out by researchers from EHU, the Materials Physics Center, nanoGUNE, and DIPC introduces a groundbreaking approach to solar energy conversion and spintronics. The work tackles a long-standing limitation in the bulk photovoltaic effect—the need for non-centrosymmetric crystals—by demonstrating that even perfectly symmetric materials can generate significant photocurrents through engineered surface electronic states. This discovery opens new pathways for designing efficient light-to-electricity conversion systems and ultrafast spintronic devices.

Guan’s group reports a nanorobot with ultrasensitive chemotaxis for precision cancer therapy. After intravenous injection, the nanorobots achieved a 209-fold increase in tumor targeting efficiency compared with conventional passive nanocarriers. When loaded with only 1% of the dose of anticancer drugs, the nanorobots achieved a tumor growth inhibition rate of up to 92.7%. The nanorobots boost the tumor suppression efficacy by approximately 49-fold compared with the passive counterparts.

Researchers at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT-Italian Institute of Technology) have developed an innovative microscopy technique capable of improving the observation of living cells. The study, published in the journal Optics Letters, paves the way for a more in-depth analysis of numerous biological processes without the need for contrast agents. The next step will be to enhance this technique using artificial intelligence, opening the door to a new generation of optical microscopy methods capable of combining direct imaging with innovative molecular information.

Osaka Metropolitan University researchers have developed a polymerization technology that enables the synthesis of degradable polymer capsules in aqueous solvents without any initiators or catalysts by irradiating light-reactive monomers derived from natural products.