Atomically resolved imaging of radiation-sensitive metal-organic frameworks via electron ptychography.

Electron ptychography, recognized as an ideal technique for low-dose imaging, consistently achieves deep sub-angstrom resolution at electron doses of several thousand electrons per square angstrom (e/Å) or higher. Despite its proven efficacy, the application of electron ptychography at even lower doses-necessary for materials highly sensitive to electron beams-raises questions regarding its feasibility and the attainable resolution under such stringent conditions. Herein, we demonstrate the implementation of near-atomic-resolution ( ~ 2 Å) electron ptychography reconstruction at electron doses as low as ~100 e/Å, for metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which are known for their extreme sensitivity.

Mechanically interlocked two-dimensional polymers.

Mechanical bonds arise between molecules that contain interlocked subunits, such as one macrocycle threaded through another. Within polymers, these linkages will confer distinctive mechanical properties and other emergent behaviors, but polymerizations that form mechanical bonds efficiently and use simple monomeric building blocks are rare. In this work, we introduce a solid-state polymerization in which one monomer infiltrates crystals of another to form a macrocycle and mechanical bond at each repeat unit of a two-dimensional (2D) polymer.

Quantum-limited stochastic optical neural networks operating at a few quanta per activation.

Energy efficiency in computation is ultimately limited by noise, with quantum limits setting the fundamental noise floor. Analog physical neural networks hold promise for improved energy efficiency compared to digital electronic neural networks. However, they are typically operated in a relatively high-power regime so that the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is large (>10), and the noise can be treated as a perturbation.

Moiré band structure engineering using a twisted boron nitride substrate.

Applying long wavelength periodic potentials on quantum materials has recently been demonstrated to be a promising pathway for engineering novel quantum phases of matter. Here, we utilize twisted bilayer boron nitride (BN) as a moiré substrate for band structure engineering. Small-angle-twisted bilayer BN is endowed with periodically arranged up and down polar domains, which imprints a periodic electrostatic potential on a target two-dimensional (2D) material placed on top.

Sequence-dependent conformational preferences of disordered single-stranded RNA.

Disordered single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) molecules, like their well-folded counterparts, have crucial functions that depend on their structures. However, since native ssRNAs constitute a highly heterogeneous conformer population, their structural characterization poses challenges. One important question regards the role of sequence in influencing ssRNA structure.

Deep two-photon voltage imaging with adaptive excitation.

Optical imaging of neuronal voltage dynamics is invaluable to studying brain functions. However, high-speed imaging at significant depth is challenging due to the limitations of the short pixel dwell time and the maximum permissible excitation power in tissues. We report high-speed, deep voltage imaging by applying adaptive excitation, which illuminates the regions of interest only.

Signatures of ambient pressure superconductivity in thin film LaNiO.

Recently, the bilayer nickelate LaNiO has been discovered as a new superconductor with transition temperature T near 80 K under high pressure. Despite extensive theoretical and experimental work to understand the nature of its superconductivity, the requirement of extreme pressure restricts the use of many experimental probes and limits its application potential. Here, we present signatures of superconductivity in LaNiO thin films at ambient pressure, facilitated by the application of epitaxial compressive strain.

Simultaneous 2-photon and 3-photon excitation with a red fluorescent protein-cyanine dye probe pair in the 1700-nm excitation window for deep neurovascular imaging.

imaging of the neurovascular network is considered to be one of the most powerful approaches for understanding brain functionality. Nevertheless, simultaneously imaging the biological neural network and blood vessels in deep brain layers in a non-invasive manner remains to a major challenge due to the lack of appropriate labeling fluorescence probe pairs. Herein, we proposed a 2-photon and 3-photon fluorescence probe pair for neurovascular imaging.

Synergistic Effect in Hybrid Plasmonic Conjugates for Photothermal Applications.

Photothermal conversion efficiency (η) plays a crucial role in selecting suitable gold nanoparticles for photothermal therapeutic applications. The photothermal efficiency depends on the material used for the nanoparticles as well as their various parameters, such as size and shape. By maximizing the light-to-heat conversion efficiency (η), one can reduce the concentration of nanoparticle drugs for photothermal cancer treatment and apply lower laser power to irradiate the tumor.

Spiral cardiac quantitative susceptibility mapping for differential cardiac chamber oxygenation-Initial validation in relation to invasive blood sampling.

Purpose: To develop a breath-hold cardiac quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) sequence for noninvasive measurement of differential cardiac chamber blood oxygen saturation (ΔSO).

Methods: A non-gated three-dimensional stack-of-spirals QSM sequence was implemented to continuously sample the data throughout the cardiac cycle. Measurements of ΔSO between the right and left heart chamber obtained by the proposed sequence and a previously validated navigator Cartesian QSM sequence were compared in three cohorts consisting of healthy volunteers, coronavirus disease 2019 survivors, and patients with pulmonary hypertension.

Nonlinear mid-infrared meta-membranes.

Nanophotonic structures have shown promising routes to controlling and enhancing nonlinear optical processes at the nanoscale. However, most nonlinear nanostructures require a handling substrate, reducing their application scope. Due to the underwhelming heat dissipation, it has been a challenge to evaluate the nonlinear optical properties of free-standing nanostructures.

Scaling and merging time-resolved pink-beam diffraction with variational inference.

Time-resolved x-ray crystallography (TR-X) at synchrotrons and free electron lasers is a promising technique for recording dynamics of molecules at atomic resolution. While experimental methods for TR-X have proliferated and matured, data analysis is often difficult. Extracting small, time-dependent changes in signal is frequently a bottleneck for practitioners.

Magnetically programmed diffractive robotics.

Microscopic robots with features comparable with the wavelength of light offer new ways of probing the microscopic world and controlling light at the microscale. We introduce a new class of magnetically controlled microscopic robots (microbots) that operate at the visible-light diffraction limit, which we term diffractive robots. We combined nanometer-thick mechanical membranes, programmable nanomagnets, and diffractive optical elements to create untethered microbots small enough to diffract visible light and flexible enough to undergo complex reconfigurations in millitesla-scale magnetic fields.

Improving the scan throughput of polygon scanners.

Polygon scanners allow for some of the fastest available line rates for raster scanning imaging. Due to the optical invariant, however, there is a trade-off between the line rate and the number of resolvable points per line. Here, we describe a device that can increase the number of resolvable points per line of mirror-based scanners without sacrificing speed.

In-Plane Chirality Control of a Charge Density Wave by Means of Shear Stress.

The transition metal dichalcogenide 1T-TaS exhibits a Charge Density Wave (CDW) with in-plane chirality. Due to the rich phase diagram, the Ferro-Rotational Order (FRO) can be tuned by external stimuli. The FRO is studied by Angle-Resolved Photoelectron Spectroscopy (ARPES), Raman spectroscopy, and Selected Area Electron Diffraction (SAED).

Double Quantum Spin Hall Phase in Moiré WSe.

Quantum spin Hall (QSH) insulators are topologically protected phases of matter in two dimensions that can support a pair of helical edge states surrounding an insulating bulk. A higher (even) number of helical edge state pairs is usually not possible in real materials because spin mixing would gap out the edge states. Here, we report experimental evidence for a QSH phase with one and two pairs of helical edge states in twisted bilayer WSe at Moiré hole filling factor ν = 2 and 4, respectively.

Superconductivity in twisted bilayer WSe.

Moiré materials have enabled the realization of flat electron bands and quantum phases that are driven by the strong correlations associated with flat bands. Superconductivity has been observed, but only in graphene moiré materials. The absence of robust superconductivity in moiré materials beyond graphene, such as semiconductor moiré materials, has remained a mystery and challenged our current understanding of superconductivity in flat bands.

Multiregion Light Control in Diffusive Media via Wavefront Shaping.

Wavefront shaping allows focusing light through or inside strongly scattering media, but the background intensity also increases which reduces the target's contrast. By combining transmission or deposition matrices for different regions, we construct joint operators to achieve spatially resolved control of light in diffusive systems. The eigenmode of a contrast operator can maximize the power contrast between a target and its surrounding.

Using both faces of polar semiconductor wafers for functional devices.

Unlike non-polar semiconductors such as silicon, the broken inversion symmetry of the wide-bandgap semiconductor gallium nitride (GaN) leads to a large electronic polarization along a unique crystal axis. This makes the two surfaces of the semiconductor wafer perpendicular to the polar axis substantially different in their physical and chemical properties. In the past three decades, the cation (gallium) face of GaN has been used for photonic devices such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and lasers.

A Strongly Reducing sp Carbon-Conjugated Covalent Organic Framework Formed by N-Heterocyclic Carbene Dimerization.

Covalent organic frameworks linked by carbon-carbon double bonds (C=C COFs) are an emerging class of crystalline, porous, and conjugated polymeric materials with potential applications in organic electronics, photocatalysis, and energy storage. Despite the rapidly growing interest in sp carbon-conjugated COFs, only a small number of closely related condensation reactions have been successfully employed for their synthesis to date. Herein, we report the first example of a C=C COF, CORN-COF-1 (CORN=Cornell University), prepared by N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) dimerization.

Electronically configurable microscopic metasheet robots.

Shape morphing is vital to locomotion in microscopic organisms but has been challenging to achieve in sub-millimetre robots. By overcoming obstacles associated with miniaturization, we demonstrate microscopic electronically configurable morphing metasheet robots. These metabots expand locally using a kirigami structure spanning five decades in length, from 10 nm electrochemically actuated hinges to 100 μm splaying panels making up the ~1 mm robot.

Cation-induced intramolecular coil-to-globule transition in poly(ADP-ribose).

Poly(ADP-ribose) (PAR), a non-canonical nucleic acid, is essential for DNA/RNA metabolism and protein condensation, and its dysregulation is linked to cancer and neurodegeneration. However, key structural insights into PAR's functions remain largely uncharacterized, hindered by the challenges in synthesizing and characterizing PAR, which are attributed to its length heterogeneity. A central issue is how PAR, comprised solely of ADP-ribose units, attains specificity in its binding and condensing proteins based on chain length.