Professor Tony James has been recognised for his world-leading research by the Chinese Chemical Society (2025).

A team of researchers, co-led by an engineer at Penn State, are developing artificial vision technology that could help self-driving cars and robots see more clearly in changing light. Inspired by the way human eyes adjust from bright to dark settings, the new system is able to recognize visual patterns with high accuracy in mixed lighting in a test reminiscent of an eye doctor exam.

An international team of researchers has reported a major advance in understanding quantum dynamics in semiconductor materials. They directly observed how excitons and phonons evolve together in perovskite nanocrystals, revealing a fully coherent quantum dance between light-induced electronic excitations and crystal lattice vibrations. They published their findings in Nature Communications.  

Researchers demonstrated a superconducting qubit sensor that combines quantum criticality and non-equilibrium dynamics to estimate gradient fields with precision approaching the fundamental precision limits using simple measurements.

As part of an international team, researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have synthesized an extraordinary aromatic cycle. Consisting of three metal atoms, it is the heaviest example of this type of molecule: A triangle made from three bismuth atoms is held between two metal complexes in a structure known as “inverse‑sandwich” complex. This discovery contributes to a better understanding of aromaticity in heavy elements. In addition, the study might pave the way for new functional materials. The results have been published in Nature Chemistry.  (DOI: 10.1038/s41557-026-02123-8)

Scientists from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have explained themicrostructure formation mechanism of nonsolvent-induced phase separation (NIPS) by separating the formation processesof different pore structure. Based on the findings, the team developed a free-standing ultrathin porous polymeric membrane with a thickness of only 2.7 μm that simultaneously offers high selectivity and high conductivity. When applied in a vanadium flow battery, the membrane demonstrated outstanding electrochemical performance.

Could wound healing dressings adhere better, and drug delivery patches become more sophisticated? A KAIST research team has developed a technology that leverages natural ingredients derived from plants to increase the strength of seaweed-based hydrogel (a gel material that contains a large amount of water while maintaining its shape) by more than fivefold, while also controlling its adhesiveness and degradation rate.