Related papers: Liquid Metal Molecular Scissors
The future of 2D flexible electronics relies on the preparation of conducting ultrathin films of materials with mechanical robustness and flexibility in a simple but controlled manner. In this respect, metal-organic compounds present…
Nematic elastomers and glasses are solids that display spontaneous distortion under external stimuli. Recent advances in the synthesis of sheets with controlled heterogeneities have enabled their actuation into non-trivial shapes with…
Conventional electrical circuits are generally rigid in their components and working styles which are not flexible and stretchable. From an alternative, liquid metal based soft electronics is offering important opportunities for innovating…
Low-molecular weight (LMW) hydrogels are gaining interest over macromolecular gels due to their reversible, dynamic and stimuli-responsive nature. They are potentially interesting functional materials for advanced applications such as…
Atomic structures of nanomaterials are inherently dynamic, continuously reshaped through interactions with chemical species and external stimuli. Such dynamics are further amplified as the size and dimensionality of nanomaterials are…
We present helium atom micro-diffraction as an ideal technique for characterization of 2D materials due to its ultimate surface sensitivity combined with sub-micron spatial resolution. Thermal energy neutral helium scatters from the valence…
In equilibrium, the physical properties of matter are set by the interactions between the constituents. In contrast, the energy input of the individual components controls the behavior of synthetic or living active matter. Great progress…
Liquid metals (LM) are embedded in an elastomer matrix to obtain soft composites with unique thermal, dielectric, and mechanical properties. They have applications in soft robotics, biomedical engineering, and wearable electronics. By…
Ab initio molecular dynamics simulation is used to study the structure and electronic properties of the liquid Ga-Se system at the three compositions Ga$_2$Se, GaSe and Ga$_2$Se$_3$, and of the GaSe and Ga$_2$Se$_3$ crystals. The calculated…
Dicing soft solids with a sharp knife is quicker and smoother if the blade is sliding rapidly parallel to its edge in addition to the normal squeezing motion. We explain this common observation with a consistent theory suited for soft gels…
X-ray as well as electron diffraction are powerful tools for structure determination of molecules. Studies on randomly oriented molecules in the gas-phase address cases in which molecular crystals cannot be generated or the interaction-free…
Gallium is a plasmonic material offering ultraviolet to near-infrared tunability, facile and scalable preparation, and good stability of nanoparticles. In our contribution, we experimentally demonstrate the link between the shape and size…
Lipid membranes form the barrier between the inside and outside of cells and many of their subcompartments. As such, they bind to a wide variety of nano- and micrometer sized objects and, in the presence of strong adhesive forces, strongly…
Self-assembly is one of the crucial mechanisms allowing to design multifunctional materials. Soft hybrid materials contain components of different nature and exhibit competitive interactions which drive self-organisation into structures of…
Two dimensional materials offer a path forward for smaller and more efficient devices. Their optical and electronic properties give way to beat the limits set in place by Moore's Law. Plasmon are the collective oscillations of electrons and…
This paper is written as a brief introduction for beginning graduate students. The picture of electron waves moving in a cristalline potential and interacting weakly with each other and with cristalline vibrations suffices to explain the…
Active elastomeric liquid crystal particles with initial cylindrical shapes are obtained by means of soft lithography and polymerization in a strong magnetic field. Gold nanocrystals infiltrated into these particles mediate energy transfer…
Plastic flow in amorphous solids is known to be carried by localized shear transformations (STs) which have been proposed to preferentially initiate from some defect units in the structure, akin to dislocations and point defects in…
Materials based on spin crossover (SCO) molecules have centred the attention in Molecular Magnetism for more than forty years as they provide unique examples of multifunctional and stimuli-responsive materials, which can be then integrated…
Modular architectures are a promising route toward scalable superconducting quantum processors, but finite fabrication yield and the lack of high quality temporary interconnects impose fundamental limitations on system size. Here, we…