A team from Tsinghua University reports Au–TiO₂ metasurfaces that convert visible light into singlet oxygen at high speed and extremely high local density. By combining quasi-BIC field confinement with hot-carrier transfer across an ultrathin interface, the device produces molar-level singlet oxygen locally within seconds, which is surprisingly ~10⁶ times that achieved by conventional approaches. Besides, the on-chip generator enables wavelength- and pixel-selective cytotoxicity for targeted tumor cell killing in photodynamic therapy.

Every time an autonomous drone dives to explore the ocean floor, the very armor designed to protect it simultaneously blinds its sonar. In International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, Chinese researchers have solved this long-standing engineering paradox by inventing a soft, custom-molded acoustic "contact lens" that actively corrects outgoing sound waves before they pass through the drone's protective shell.

Harvard researchers have built a device called a pico-calorimeter that directly measures heat signals from small groups of living cells.