A research team from South China University of Technology has discovered that water molecules within sub-nanometer porous organic nanocages (POCs) act not merely as fillers, but as a critical "switch" regulating material properties. This study reveals how water drives the transition of POCs from a brittle glassy state to a flexible rubbery state, demonstrating immense potential for applications in biomimetic anti-freeze materials and high-performance solid-state lithium-ion battery electrolytes.

In the advancement of human-machine interaction and intelligent wearable devices, high-performance multifunctional fiber materials are crucial for enabling natural, efficient human-machine interaction and seamless system integration.

As electromagnetic environments become increasingly complex with the transition toward 6G communication technologies, materials that can actively adapt their absorption behavior are urgently needed. Researchers have developed an electrochemically driven, air-breathing ZAB-based device that enables reversible and broadband tuning of microwave absorption by regulating oxygen generation and consumption at the material–air interface.

The rapid rise of IoT and AI is exposing the energy and data movement limits of von Neumann computing. Neuromorphic computing, especially spiking neural networks, offers a compelling alternative but demands compact hardware with neuron like nonlinear dynamics. In the new Nano Research review, Prof. Chuanyu Han’s team highlights recent progress in artificial spiking neurons built from emerging electronic devices, spanning memristor-based and transistor-based implementations. The article distills key spiking mechanisms, practical circuit design templates, and system demonstrations for neuromorphic perception and brain inspired computing, and introduces a rigorous unified benchmarking framework to help compare technologies and accelerate interdisciplinary work across materials science and microelectronics.

Infrared focal plane arrays (FPAs) are image sensors, widely used in thermal imaging systems across various fields. Future advancements in FPAs are expected to require high data rates, which can cause heat leakage from electrical interconnects into FPAs, increasing noise and raising cooling requirements. In a new study, researchers demonstrated cryogenic vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL)-based optical interconnects that can achieve high-speed communication while reducing thermal leakage and power consumption.

Waveguide-based electro-optic (E-O) frequency combs are prized for their flexible pump wavelength, tunable repetition rate and near-100% conversion efficiency, but their spectral span is usually limited to a few nanometers. Researchers now report a broadband waveguide E-O comb based on "mode circulation": a single beam is recirculated through the same phase-modulation region eight times as four distinct waveguide modes (TE0–TE3). Enabled by a Z-propagation mode multiplexer that suppresses mode hybridization in anisotropic lithium-niobate-on-insulator waveguides, the device boosts the modulation index by ~7.5×, generating 128 comb lines across 25.6 nm at 25 GHz with an effective half-wave voltage of just 1.24 V and only 7 dB on-chip loss.

A new study published in the Chinese Journal of Aeronautics （https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2025.103943） tries to break this deadlock. Researchers from Northwestern Polytechnical University and Tsinghua University have developed a novel modeling framework called differential equation model long-short term memory neural network (DEM-LSTM). This hybrid approach integrates the theoretical rigor of differential equations with the nonlinear mapping capabilities of LSTM neural network, offering a solution that is both accurate and physically interpretable.