Since the first observation of fullerene nearly three decades ago, allotropes of carbon, including carbon nanotube and graphene, have been the focus of considerable research because of their remarkable physical and chemical properties that suggest the potential for a wide variety of practical applications. Well known, in terms of carbon-atom hybridization, well-established forms of carbon are diamond

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The study of heterostructured materials (HSMs) answered one of the most pressing questions in the metallurgical field: “is it possible to greatly increase both the strength and the strain hardening, to avoid the “inevitable” loss of ductility?”. From the synergy between the deformation modes of zones with greatly different flow stress, low stacking fault energy (SFE) alloys can reduce their typical

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Amorphization of crystalline structures is a ubiquitous phenomenon in metals, ceramics, and intermetallic compounds. Although the amorphous phase generally has a higher Gibbs free energy than its crystalline counterpart, there are many methods by which amorphization can be generated. The requirement to create an amorphous phase from a solid crystalline one is to increase its free energy above a critical

Nature has created high-performance materials and structures over millions of years of evolution. Inspired by the concepts and design principles evident in natural materials and structures, high-performance tactile sensors, based on bioinspired structures/functions, natural biopolymers, and biomimetic strategies, have been developed. However, the primary challenge is to develop novel sensing mechanisms

The combination of multiple-principal element materials, known as high-entropy materials (HEMs), expands the multi-dimensional compositional space to gigantic stoichiometry. It is impossible to afford a holistic approach to explore each possibility. With the advance of the materials genome initiative and characterization technology, a high-throughput (HT) approach is more reasonable, especially to

The desire for developing ultraviolet optoelectronic devices has prompted extensive studies toward wide-bandgap semiconductor ZnO and its related alloys. Bandgap engineering as well as p-type doping is the key toward practical applications of ZnO. As yet, stable and reproducible p-type doping of ZnO remains a formidable challenge. To circumvent p-type conductivity, ZnO-based optoelectronic devices

The technology to record image information at high resolution is of great importance in the optical areas of applied physics and biochemical imaging, as well as in commercial imaging applications such as cameras and machine vision. Organic semiconductors are drawing interest as photodetecting materials for next-generation high-resolution image sensors (IS) owing to their excellent properties such as

Biological systems include several well-known patterns with different forms and dimensions (nano to macro) such as cracks, whiskers, hierarchical, interlocked, porous, and bristle-like structures, as well as hetero-layered brick-and-mortar structures. These structures and surfaces typically have several functions based on their structure and surface chemistry which include static coloration, self-cleaning

Lattice structures, which are also known as architected cellular structures, have been applied in various industrial sectors, owing to their fascinated performances, such as low elastic modulus, high stiffness-to-weight ratio, low thermal expansion coefficient, and large specific surface area. The lattice structures fabricated by conventional manufacturing technologies always involve complicated process

The progress witnessed within the field of quantum computing has been enabled by the identification and understanding of interactions between the state of the quantum bit (qubit) and the materials within its environment. Beginning with an introduction of the parameters used to differentiate various quantum computing approaches, we discuss the evolution of the key components that comprise superconducting

High-entropy ceramics with five or more cations have recently attracted significant attention due to their superior properties for various structural and functional applications. Although the multi-component ceramics have been of interest for several decades, the concept of high-entropy ceramics was defined in 2004 by producing the first high-entropy nitride films. Following the introduction of the

Quantitative descriptions of the structure-thermal property correlation have always been a challenging bottleneck in designing functional materials with superb thermal properties. In the past decade, the first-principles-based modeling of phonon properties using density functional theory and the Boltzmann transport equation has become a common practice for predicting the thermal conductivity of new

This review is written to introduce infrared photon detectors based on solution-processable semiconductors. A new generation of solution-processable photon detectors have been reported in the past few decades based on colloidal quantum dots, two-dimensional materials, organics semiconductors, and perovskites. These materials offer sensitivity within the infrared spectral regions and the advantages

In recent years, the development of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers (HCWs) attracted enormous attention, especially during the pandemic of COVID-19. The semi-permeable protective clothing and the prolonged working hours make the thermal comfort a critical issue for HCWs. Although there are many commercially available personal cooling products for PPE systems, they are either

For the past two decades, the researches on stretchable physical sensors have made great technological advances, and have been applied to various applications such as electronic skin for robots, haptic devices, bionics, and wearable/implantable healthcare sensors, etc. The deformable physical sensors have been investigated in two approaches: the electronic sensors with the well-developed fabrication

Hydrogels have been widely investigated in biomedical fields due to their similar physical and biochemical properties to the extracellular matrix (ECM). Collagen and hyaluronic acid (HA) are the main components of the ECM in many tissues. As a result, hydrogels prepared from collagen and HA hold inherent advantages in mimicking the structure and function of the native ECM. Numerous studies have focused

Flexible stimuli-responsive materials are deformable, stretchable, light-weight, and desirable for smart personal protective equipment (PPE), and as the primarily functional components in the wearable system which spontaneously respond to surrounding variations. These materials enable the traditional PPE who provide passive protection to be smart with the abilities of sensing, actuating, surface changing

Natural biomaterials have benefited the human civilisation for millennia. However, in recent years, designing of natural materials for a wide range of applications have become a focus of attention, spearheaded by sustainability. With advances in materials science, new ways of manufacturing, processing, and functionalising biomaterials for structural specificity has become feasible. Our review is focused

Electromagnetic (EM) absorbers drive the development of EM technology and advanced EM equipment. The utilization of EM energy conversion of the EM absorber to design a variety of devices is attractive and promising, especially in personal protection and healthcare. In this review article, wearable EM materials are reviewed, ranging from design strategies, EM response mechanism, EM performance improvement

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is crucial for ensuring occupational safety when handling toxic chemicals or in close contact with biological pathogens. The increased poisoning and infection cases outside the working scenario have attracted public attention, which drove the development and application of PPE for the professionals and the public. The use of PPE can effectively lower the risk of

Bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) being metallic materials without long-range order have attracted a considerable amount of interest from academia and industry in the past three decades due to their unique and outstanding properties. However, the manufacturing of glassy components with large dimension and complex geometries has remained a considerable challenge. The main obstructions in this regard arise

Transient electronics, which can be tuned to be completely or partially dissoluble, degradable, and disintegrable, create new opportunities in the upcoming ubiquitous electronics era that are inaccessible with conventional permanent electronics. This emerging field offers unique electronic applications in environmentally degradable eco-devices with minimal or zero waste, biodegradable medical implants

Device applications of ferroelectrics have not only utilized the switchable polarization but also adopted myriads of emerging physical properties. In particular, ferroelectrics in ultra-thin limit have recently attracted considerable scientific and technological interest owing to the increasing demand for miniaturization of electronic devices. In the last two decades, ultra-thin ferroelectrics have

Two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene and molybdenum disulfide et al. offer significant new prospects for electronics, optics, and biosensing applications due to their unique physical and chemical properties. The controlled manipulation of such materials to create three-dimensional (3D) architectures is an intriguing approach to favorably tuning their properties and creating new types of

The spin-orbit coupling field, an atomic magnetic field inside a Kramers’ system, or discrete symmetries can create a topological torus in the Brillouin Zone and provide protected edge or surface states, which can contain relativistic fermions, namely, Dirac and Weyl Fermions. The topology-protected helical edge or surface states and the bulk electronic energy band define different quantum or topological

Emulating the unique combination of structural, compositional, and functional gradation in natural materials is exceptionally challenging. Many natural structures have proved too complex or expensive to imitate using traditional processing techniques despite recent manufacturing advances. Recent innovations within the field of additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D Printing (3DP) have shown the ability

Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as three-dimensional (3D) printing, has boomed over the last 30 years, and its use has accelerated during the last 5 years. AM is a materials-oriented manufacturing technology, and printing resolution versus printing scalability/speed trade-off exists among various types of materials, including polymers, metals, ceramics, glasses, and composite materials. Four-dimensional

The prevalence of bacterial infections and resistance to existing antibiotics make new effective antibacterial strategies urgently needed. Photocatalytic antibacterial, an effective strategy relying on exogenous excitation, has drawn increasing attention over the past decades, owing to its controllable, safe, and non-invasive characteristics. Many photoresponsive agents have been developed. With exceptional

The polyurethanes (PU) are a very versatile family of materials mainly obtained by combinations of polyols and polyisocyanates. Based on their annual worldwide production of around 20 million tons and a global market of $50 billion (2016), PUs rank 6th among all polymers. Through their value chain, PUs involve different players: (i) the chemists producing most of PUs raw materials, (ii) the PUs producers

The engineering applications of thermoelectric (TE) devices require TE materials possessing high TE performance and robust mechanical properties. Research on thermal and electrical transport properties of TE materials has made significant progress during the last two decades, developing TE materials on the threshold of commercial applications. However, research on mechanical strength and toughness

Fire safety has become a major concern due to the ubiquitous use of polymers. The development of flame retardant polymer materials has consequently experienced a huge growth in market size. New strategies and legislation have also been proposed to save lives and property. The science and economics of flame retardancy, fire regulations, and new technologies are under permanent evolution. This review

As one of the most complex structures in nature, butterflies have attracted wide interest over the past few decades. Inspired by these delicate structures and the marvelous derived properties, scientists have investigated and biomimetic fabricated several designs to replicate the structure and to apply the functional features. Here, we present up-to-date researches concerning butterfly-inspired functional

Artificial intelligence (AI) based approaches are beginning to impact several domains of human life, science and technology. Polymer informatics is one such domain where AI and machine learning (ML) tools are being used in the efficient development, design and discovery of polymers. Surrogate models are trained on available polymer data for instant property prediction, allowing screening of promising

Benefitting from the combined properties of intrinsic ceramic materials and advanced porous configuration, lightweight porous ceramics with porosity ranging from 2.3 to 99% and pore size distribution within 3 nm - 3 mm exhibit low density, large specific surface area, high toughness, strong thermal shock resistance, good thermal insulation capability, excellent high temperature stability, and low dielectric

The outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has triggered great global public health concern. Face masks are essential tools to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 from human to human. However, there are still challenges to prolong the serving life and maintain the filtering performance of the current commercial mask

Over many decades, significant efforts have been made to improve the strength-elongation product of advanced high strength steels (AHSSs) by creating tailored multi-phase microstructures. Successive solid-state phase transformations for steels with a well selected chemical composition turned out to be the key instrument in the realisation of such microstructures. In this contribution, we first provide

Rechargeable alkaline Zn–MnO2 (RAM) batteries are a promising candidate for grid-scale energy storage owing to their high theoretical energy density rivaling lithium-ion systems (∼400 Wh/L), relatively safe aqueous electrolyte, established supply chain, and projected costs below $100/kWh at scale. In practice, however, many fundamental chemical and physical processes at both electrodes make it difficult

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) employing purely organic functional materials indicate a low-cost manufacturing route towards the next-generation display and solid-state lighting owing to the avoidance of noble heavy metal complex phosphorescent emitters. In recent years, several mechanisms have been proposed to design high performance purely organic emitters. This new generation of purely organic

As a material possessing extremely high thermal conductivity, graphene has been considered as the ultimate filler for fabrication of highly thermally conductive polymer composites. In the past decade, graphene and its derivatives were demonstrated in many studies to be very effective in enhancing the thermal conductivity of various polymers. This paper reviews current progress in the development of

Photovoltaic (PV) technology offers an economic and sustainable solution to the challenge of increasing energy demand in times of global warming. The world PV market is currently dominated by the homo-junction crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV technology based on high temperature diffused p-n junctions, featuring a low power conversion efficiency (PCE). Recent years have seen the successful development

With the development of science and technology, microelectronic components have evolved to become increasingly integrated and miniaturized. As a result, thermal management, which can seriously impact the function, reliability, and lifetime of such components, has become a critical issue. Recently, the use of polymer-based thermal interface materials (TIMs) in thermal management systems has attracted

Group-III-nitride semiconductors, including AlN, GaN, InN and their ternary, quaternary compounds, are promising electronic and optoelectronic materials for the applications in light emitting diodes, lasers, field emitters, photodetectors, artificial photosynthesis, and solar cells. Owing to their direct bandgaps ranging from near infra-red to deep ultraviolet. In recent years, the growth of group-III

Electron holography is a useful technique to directly visualize the electromagnetic fields in and around various functional materials at the nanometer scale. The precision and resolution of this technique have been drastically improved by using various specialized instruments. From in situ experiments applying electric current and voltage and using these specialized instruments, conductivity changes

The exciting properties of micro- and nano-patterned surfaces found in natural species hide a virtually endless potential of technological ideas, opening new opportunities for innovation and exploitation in materials science and engineering. Due to the diversity of biomimetic surface functionalities, inspirations from natural surfaces are interesting for a broad range of applications in engineering

Generally, nanophotonics is associated with plasmonic materials and structures made of noble metals such as gold or silver. However, conventional plasmonic materials have several disadvantages restricting their applications. First, plasmonic materials like gold and silver suffer from high optical loss at optical frequencies. Second, noble metals are rare and not proper for large scale fabrication.

Conventional rubber products, such as tires, seals, tubing, and damping systems are manufactured via a vulcanization process, which forms covalently crosslinked network structures and ensures mechanical robustness, thermal stability and chemical resistance. However, the covalent networks are permanent and these products cannot be reprocessed or reshaped, which makes vulcanised rubbers one of the major

The authors would like to thank Brett Moore, Adam Williamson, and Xenofon Strakosas for edits.