Professor Yongzhe Wun's team at East China University of Science and Technology significantly improved the interfacial contact and mechanical stability of inverted perovskite solar cells by constructing triphenylamine-based co-assembled hole transport monolayers. This work addressed key issues such as poor interfacial wettability and insufficient mechanical stability of traditional carbazole-based self-assembled monolayers (e.g., Me-4PACz) in inverted perovskite solar cells. They designed and synthesized a series of multi-legged triphenylamine derivatives (TPA-nCPA) containing cyanoethylphosphonic acid anchoring groups and innovatively proposed a co-assembly strategy with Me-4PACz. Rigid devices fabricated based on this strategy achieved an excellent photoelectric conversion efficiency of 26.27%, while flexible devices achieved an efficiency of 22.38%. Furthermore, after 5000 cycles at a 5mm bending radius, they maintained 90% of their initial efficiency, demonstrating outstanding mechanical stability. The article was published as an open access research article in CCS Chemistry, the flagship journal of the Chinese Chemical Society.

UNC-Chapel Hill researchers show that AI can rapidly and accurately georeference plant specimens, transforming the digitization of global biodiversity collections.

Since most people carry their phones with them every day, Shogo Takada is working on a way to use smartphone microphones to assist in locating disaster victims. The method combines two types of sound sources, monopole and dipole. In a disaster situation, a rescuer would emit two dipole sounds, which would be received by the microphone of a trapped victim, and then an electromagnetic wave would be sent from the victim’s phone to broadcast their location.

A major advancement in sustainable materials science: WPI researchers have engineered a new construction material that not only rivals concrete—it actually captures carbon during production. This breakthrough could change how we build homes, buildings, and infrastructure, offering a new pathway to low-carbon, resilient construction.

Scientists have made a nano breakthrough with a huge potential impact – one that puts printable electronics on the horizon. The scientists have solved a long-standing mystery governing the way layered materials behave, which has yielded a universal, predictive framework for the future of the 2D semiconductor industry.   

Imagine wearable health sensors, smart packaging, flexible displays, or disposable IoT controllers all manufactured like printed newspapers. The same technology could underpin communication circuits, sensors, and signal-processing components made entirely from solution-processed 2D materials.

But until now, finding and developing the 2D materials that could enable such devices was largely trial and error.

For his forward-leaning research into quantum sensing, U.S. Navy Cmdr. Jens Berdahl, a former naval aviator and F/A-18 pilot pursuing his doctorate at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) through the service’s Permanent Military Professor (PMP) program, was presented with the highly competitive Margaret Burbidge Award for Best Experimental Research by a Graduate Student by the American Physical Society, Far West Section. 

Syntax Bio, a synthetic biology company programming the next generation of cell therapies, today announced the publication of new research in Science Advances detailing the company’s CRISPR-based Cellgorithm™ technology, which lays the groundwork for programmable control of gene activity in human stem cells and offers an alternative to the slow, variable manual processes researchers use today.

In traditional cell differentiation, scientists expose stem cells to a series of growth factors, media changes, and environmental cues over months to coax them into a desired lineage. Each step is highly sensitive to timing and reagent conditions, leading to inconsistent results that are difficult to reproduce or scale. Syntax Bio aims to address this challenge. 

“Our research shows that we can now achieve an unprecedented level of temporal control over how genes turn on inside stem cells,” said Ryan Clarke, PhD, Syntax Bio co-founder, chief technology officer, and study co-author. “It’s the foundation of a new programming language for cells, one that we believe can eventually surpass the slow, inconsistent cell differentiation approaches researchers have relied on for years. Our goal is to make cell programming as reliable and scalable as running software.”