Themed collection Nanoscale 2025 Emerging Investigators

Our Emerging Investigators collection gathers some of the best research being conducted by nanoscientists in the early stages of their independent career. Congratulations to all of the researchers featured.

This review highlights the therapeutic potential of metal-based and metal oxide nanoparticles in IVDD by leveraging their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and microenvironment-modulating properties to enhance tissue repair. The ToC was created in BioRender. Zhang, L. (2025) https://BioRender.com/6fzdcqv.

This review highlights iron-based nanozymes including iron oxides, single-atom nanozymes, and MOFs that induce ferroptosis via ROS generation and Fenton chemistry, achieved by POD-, CAT-, OXD- and SOD-like activities.

This review highlights recent stimulus-responsive antimicrobial nanotherapeutics for ocular infections, focusing on their design, progress, and advantages/limitations.

This review systematically compiles studies on redox reactions during SLFP regeneration, which are crucial for enhancing the understanding the regeneration of SLFP batteries.

This review explores advancements, applications, challenges, and future prospects of flexible fibrous electrodes for implantable biosensing, highlighting their potential in biomedical monitoring and human–machine interfaces. Images reproduced with permission, full details in paper.

Cu-based bimetallic catalysts show enhanced electrochemical CO₂ reduction performance via the tandem effect. This review traces their progress, highlighting design advances, mechanisms, and challenges to guide efficient CO₂ conversion.

Polymeric nanoparticles represent an innovative approach to drug delivery, particularly for addressing complex diseases like cancer.

External strategies such as electrode design, stress/heat transfer improvements, microstructure optimization, and multifunctional synergy show great potential for improving sensing performance of PVDF-based sensors. Images reproduced with permission, full details in paper.

The increasing demand for sustainable solutions to address environmental and energy challenges has driven the development of advanced materials. This paper highlights recent advancements in the development of sustainable nanofibrous membranes.

The dual role of ROS in liver diseases, and the potential of nanomaterials with catalytic activity for therapeutic applications are examined.

This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent biomedical applications of upconversion nanomaterials specifically within the near-infrared two-region (NIR-II) window (1000–1700 nm).

The emerging integrated power supplies for self-powered bioelectronic devices over the past few years are summarized. Additionally, the challenges and future perspectives in self-powered device design and manufacturing are also indicated.

Lithium metal is considered one of the most promising anode materials for lithium batteries due to its high theoretical specific capacity (3860 mA h g⁻¹) and low redox potential (−3.04 V).

This minireview highlights recent progress in BHJ-based photoelectrochemical cells and photocatalysts for solar-to-chemical conversions.

Guidelines for tailored enzyme-induced electrospun nanofiber immobilization techniques: aligning fabrication methods with future application requirements.

This review summarizes advancements in flexible pressure sensor design, including materials, devices, algorithm design, and systems, using bibliometric methods. The materials used in the system section are sourced from Vecteezy (Vecteezy.com).

This review outlines the chemical toolkit for energy-dissipating sacrificial bonds by surveying recent (post-2017) developments in tough, impact-resistant soft materials.

This review critically compares wet chemical and plasma polymerization methods for polymeric nanoparticle synthesis, highlighting plasma polymerization as a dry, scalable platform with insights into clinical translation and commercialization.

Lipid-based nanoparticles are an important class of drug delivery vehicles. This review explores the use of lipid structures to make functional and targeted nanocarriers. highlighting use of synthetic and natural lipids. BioRender was used in part to generate the graphical abstract.

Advancements in modern computational tools reveal key CNT growth mechanisms and pave the way for targeted synthesis and scalable production.

Optimizing ORR in PCFC cathodes by balancing proton and oxygen–ion transport.

Electrocatalysts for industrial-grade seawater electrolysis.

DNA origami provides precise addressable self-assembly templates, demonstrating the tremendous potential of DNA origami technology in promoting interdisciplinary integration and driving technological progress.

Engineered nanoparticles exhibit superior physicochemical, antibacterial, optical, and sensing properties, rendering them attractive for biomedical applications. Multiscale modeling aids in understanding and optimizing these properties.

The emerging functionalization strategy of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) offers transformative potential for enhancing the performance of nanostructured metal oxides (MOXs)-based gas sensors.

This review highlights recent advances in flexible, wearable mechano-acoustic sensors for body sound measurement, emphasizing their potential for ambulatory health monitoring. Created in BioRender. Dang, T. (2025) https://BioRender.com/l15d184.

In this review, we present the recent progress on transition metal dichalcogenide-based composites, including their typical categories, key fabrication strategies, and transformative roles in the field of cancer therapy.

This review involves advances in the mechanics of 2D materials, including measurement methods, sample transfer, materials design, and mechanisms covering the impact of defects and thickness for highly-bendable 2D materials.

This review provides an overview of linear, circular, and full-Stokes photodetectors, discussing how to simplify their design from complex to simple. Images by permission of: RSC 2021, WLY 2023, Optica Publishing Group 2016 and ACS 2020.

This review comprehensively summarizes the recent development of flexible multifunctional electrochromic devices, including energy harvesting, energy storage, multicolor displays, and smart windows.

This review highlights the advantages of non-annealing synthesis, emphasizing the importance of in situ characterization, multi-level simulations and machine learning to accelerate photo-/thermocatalytic research in nanoscale high-entropy alloys.

This review systematically describes the preparation of poly(amino acids) and peptides, and their use in drug loading for various diseases, offering insights for research and clinical applications of degradable biomedical polymers.

This comprehensive review of (K,Na)NbO₃-based perovskites explores design strategies, mechanisms, and applications in piezocatalysis and photo-piezocatalysis for sustainable environmental and energy solutions.

A comprehensive summary of patterning technologies of quantum dots for construction of color-conversion layers in full-color micro-LED displays is provided.

The state-of-art progress in single-atom tuned two-dimensional materials is reviewed to clarify the distinctive advantages in photocatalysis and present the crucial structure–activity relationship for improved performance.

Nanoparticle-mediated approaches to plant genetic engineering represent key advances in agriculture, offering benefits beyond conventional techniques. This review discusses essential nanoparticle design considerations to optimize delivery efficiency.

Applications of WO_x in photochromic, electrochromic, and gasochromic materials and devices.

The burgeoning initiatives implementing self-driven 2D layered material photodetectors have been presented, heralding new avenues for the next-generation integrated and miniaturized optoelectronic industry.

The use of array micro-holes is becoming increasingly prevalent across a range of industries, including the aerospace, automotive, electronics, medical and chemical industries.

A fragment containing 10 units of Cd₃P₂ is detected in the MALDI mass spectrum.

Robust and rapid fabrication of SERS substrates by 3D printing technology.

The study reports the biodegradability of 2D antimonene sheets by human peroxidase isolated from the primary immune cells, neutrophils and the impact of functionalization of antimonene with cyclodextrin on biodegradation and immune modulation.

Enhancing the pure-red perovskite emission via Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) in a polymer–perovskite blend system, leveraging optimal spectral overlap between polymer emission and perovskite absorption.

The performance of a SnSb Na-ion battery anode composed of nanolayers of Sn and Sb is reported, wherein the cycle life was significantly enhanced by the use of a high concentration electrolyte.

Fluid slip and drag reduction induced by durable slippery liquid-like surfaces (SLLSs) made from flexible polymers.

Nanoparticle-assembled interconnected PbO_1.44 hollow spheres (NAHSs) were crafted by a robust strategy of PVP-driven transformation of β-PbO₂ microspheres (MSs) combined with a self-sacrificial templating mechanism for superior lithium storage.

Triazole-based C₃N₇ nanosheets exhibit excellent photocatalytic ammonia production performance, attributed to their inherent properties of an optimised conduction band position and efficient charge separation.

CLASSIC is a label-free DNA detection platform with single-nucleotide specificity and attomolar sensitivity. This assay offers rapid and sequence-specific DNA analysis through single-strand conversion and split light-up aptamer probes.

An LiF-enriched (composition-wise) and organic/inorganic uniform-distributed (structure-wise) SEI film architecture was derived by fluorinated graphene (F-Gr) sacrificial additive to promote efficient Li-metal protection.

Bioinspired 1D helical and 2D sheet-like assemblies are combined to form a 3D homochiral assembly that allows spontaneous resolution.

Hydrodynamic slip at fluid–solid interfaces plays an important role in a range of transport phenomena, including Taylor–Aris dispersion.

Self-regulated actuators harness material intelligence to enable complex deformations and dynamics, representing a significant advancement in automated soft robotics.

Systematic investigation of lipid vesicles propelled by encapsulated magnetic particles via an inhomogeneous magnetic field, enabling navigational control and remotely triggered drug release for targeted delivery and precision medicine applications.

Pixelated colored tri-spectral decoupling thermal camouflage based on heterogeneous phase-change integration.

A new class of EM grids was developed to enable high resolution imaging of near-native cells cultured on electrospun ECM nanofibers with varying degrees of fiber alignment.

In hBN/Au systems, where both surface plasmons and hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs) coexist, we characterize strong coupling between the SPP and the in-plane transverse optical phonon of hBN.

Biocompatible liposome-based nanoformulations of an NIR absorbing triimide dye are developed for combined photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT) with dual-wavelength activity.

Functional PVDF-HFP-based gel polymer electrolyte with high ionic conductivity and sodium ion transference number for steady cycling performance of room temperature sodium-sulfur energy storage system.

BiVO₄–TiO₂ films with abundant heterojunctions were produced using the SILAR process. The synergy between BiVO₄ QDs and TiO₂ leads to long-lived charge carriers, significantly enhancing photocatalytic efficiency.

Streamlines due to the start-up flow induced by nanoscale particles.

A customizable self-pumping dressing via a 3D-printed kirigami and electrospun hydrophobic nanofibers was developed, enabling unidirectional fluid transport, antibacterial activity, and tailored elasticity (26–244%) for dynamic wound management.

This work employs ball-milling for size homogenization to regenerate cracked Ni-rich NCM cathodes. Nano-sized NCM lowers the Li⁺ diffusion barrier, enhancing relithiation efficiency over polycrystalline materials.

Medium/high-entropy vacancy-ordered double perovskites can push the boundary of the stability and band gap Pareto front, exhibiting emerging properties that are not present in their pure counterparts.

Tuning the frictional properties of transparent polyaniline (PANI)-graphene nanocomposite thin film by varying the amount of graphene in the PANI matrix.

This study involves synthesizing thin films through an interfacial method, which relies on composites of Prussian blue nanoparticles and nanostructures derived from graphene, known as crumpled graphene.

We designed 1T-MoS₂/CNFs with different thicknesses of MoS₂ layer, which affect conductivity, charge storage and transfer. Optimized 1T-MoS₂/CNFs enhance supercapacitance and hydrogen evolution performance, offering a strategy for energy devices.

DNA-functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes enabled a point-of-care uric acid testing in human urine with a robust NIR fluorescence response without an enzyme through corona phase molecular recognition.

This study offers atomistic insights into the adsorption of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) on graphene, highlighting how the stability of adsorbed PFAS is influenced by fluoroalkyl chain length, headgroup characteristic, and pH condition.

Intra-unit-cell charge imbalance in the charge-neutral Sb-doped MnBi₆Te₁₀ crystal leads to a nanoscale p–n junction, resulting in the multiple surface photovoltage effects at the boundaries of crystal domains in time-resolved ARPES measurements.