Biological barriers such as the gastrointestinal tract, skin and blood–brain barrier inhibit the permeation of drugs such as peptides, proteins and nucleic-acid-based therapeutics, resulting in poor bioavailability, side effects and limited clinical efficacy via non-invasive routes. Permeation enhancers are materials or technologies that increase drug flux by modulating the barrier structure, ideally temporarily and reversibly. Although many permeation enhancers have been introduced in the literature, only a few, for example, salcaprozate sodium used in oral semaglutide for managing type 2 diabetes, have reached the market. Permeation enhancers could help to support the continued expansion of the clinical use of biologics and meet the growing demand for patient-centric, non-invasive therapies. This Perspective examines the physiological barriers to drug delivery, the mechanistic strategies underpinning permeation enhancers and the current state of their preclinical and clinical development. We also consider regulatory hurdles and safety concerns associated with the clinical adoption of these materials and technologies and discuss the possibility of developing permeation enhancers that work for multiple biological barriers. This Perspective aims to inform future strategies to bridge the translational divide and advance the clinical deployment of permeation enhancers across diverse therapeutic classes. Permeation enhancers are transforming strategies for overcoming biological barriers in therapeutic delivery. This Perspective critically evaluates their mechanisms, clinical evidence, translational challenges and regulatory considerations and outlines emerging opportunities to enable broader therapeutic application across diverse delivery routes.
Liquid−liquid phase separation (LLPS) has emerged as a fundamental organizational principle in biological systems. A wide variety of engineered coacervates have been developed to investigate the mechanisms underlying liquid−liquid phase separation. However, the broader application potential of these coacervates has received comparatively little attention. In this Review, we present engineered coacervates as an emerging class of liquid biomaterials, beginning by highlighting their most distinctive and biomedically relevant properties: liquidity, molecular enrichment, the ability to maintain liquid stability against moderate dilution and the capability to reach hard-to-access locations. We further detail fabrication strategies that harness the supramolecular toolbox to construct engineered coacervates that meet strict biomaterial requirements. We then outline how these liquid biomaterials can be applied across diverse biomedical contexts — including drug delivery, tissue engineering, bioadhesion and antimicrobial applications — to address challenges that remain intractable with conventional approaches. Despite their great promise, key challenges remain in elucidating design principles that ensure the structural integrity and functionality of engineered coacervates within complex biological environments and in identifying the biomedical scenarios in which their advantages can be most prominently demonstrated. Overall, this Review outlines the potential of engineered coacervates as emerging liquid biomaterials for meeting pressing biomedical needs and aims to inspire broader interest and engagement from the research community. Although liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS) is a fundamental biological principle, the potential of LLPS-driven engineered coacervates remains largely untapped. This Review reframes coacervates as powerful liquid biomaterials, detailing how their unique properties can be harnessed for diverse biomedical applications.
An article in Angewandte Chemie reports a deep eutectic solvent strategy that suppresses crystallization in hybrid metal halide glasses while preserving the local structural order required for efficient and tunable luminescence.
Advances in robotic experimentation and data-driven decision-making have enabled efficient, autonomous synthesis of bespoke materials structures; yet the role of structure characterization remains underexamined. The information content of structural measurements fundamentally limits what autonomous laboratories can learn, motivating adaptive, structure-aware characterization strategies to achieve materials discovery grounded in atomic-scale understanding.
The rapid expansion of data-centric technologies has made energy-efficient computing a technological and societal priority. Modern systems consume energy not only through computation but also through data movement between logic and memory, resistive losses in interconnects and heat removal. These energy costs intensify as devices shrink and integration density increases. Architectural strategies such as three-dimensional integration reduce latency and increase functional density by bringing memory and logic closer together. Yet further scaling is progressively constrained by materials functionality at interfaces, rather than by bulk properties. In this Perspective, we argue that transport within the first few atomic layers at material boundaries will determine the efficiency and scalability of future electronic devices. First, we outline four governing principles of interface engineering: electrostatics, electronic hybridization, boundary-dominated transport and thermal and structural stability. We then derive design rules and use representative device examples to show how engineered interfaces control switching energy, electrical conduction, heat dissipation and reliability. Finally, we consider the need for low-temperature materials synthesis, interface-sensitive metrology and uncertainty-aware predictive modelling to facilitate future advances in energy-efficient computing. As electronic devices downscale, the energy efficiency of computing is increasingly limited by interfacial transport processes. This Perspective outlines how engineered electronic-material interfaces control switching, charge and heat transport, and reliability and discusses interface design for logic, memory, interconnects and thermal management, whereas identifying predictive modelling needs for interface design.
Nanoscale metallic systems exhibit distinct material properties from their bulk counterparts, which can be amplified by nanoarchitecting complex 3D shapes to exploit emergent structure–property relationships. Advances in nanoscale additive manufacturing techniques have enabled freeform 3D nanostructuring of a broad library of metallic systems, including pure metals, multicomponent alloys, and metal oxides. These methods can be broadly divided into optical printing, which uses two-photon lithography with metallic precursors, and physical deposition methods, which use confined electrochemical or physical deposition. The beneficial properties of the resulting nanostructured metallic systems facilitate next-generation designs for various applications including nanostructured metamaterials with exceptional mechanical properties; microrobots and nanorobots capable of efficient propulsion and manoeuvrability in confined fluids; hierarchically structured electrocatalytic cells with enhanced reaction kinetics; and photonic metamaterials with deep subwavelength features that can precisely control light–matter interactions. This Review outlines metallic nanoscale additive manufacturing techniques and emergent applications. We also discuss future opportunities and challenges, including design of multimaterial devices, pathways to scalability and integration with other nanomanufacturing techniques, providing a roadmap towards widespread implementation of 3D nanoscale metallic systems. The properties of nanoscale metallic systems can be amplified through nanostructuring to achieve unique performance in mechanics, robotics, catalysis and photonics. This Review highlights the key nanoscale additive manufacturing techniques used to produce such metallic systems and their distinct next-generation applications.
Carbon-negative materials are increasingly central to credible net-zero strategies; however, their climate benefits depend on transparent life-cycle boundaries, realistic end-of-life scenarios and carbon storage. Bamboo is a fast-growing lignocellulosic resource that combines high biomass productivity with the ability to sequester atmospheric carbon in long-lived materials. Beyond its rapid growth, bamboo exhibits a hierarchical structure extending from molecular composition to cell-wall ultrastructure and tissue organization that influences transport, reactivity, mechanical performance and carbon retention. In this Review, we position bamboo as a multiscale materials platform in which chemical functionality, structural organization and processing pathways can be deliberately engineered to tailor performance and service lifetime. We examine how bond-selective chemistry, controlled hydration and structural modification strategies enable the conversion of bamboo into materials across multiple dimensional scales, including structural composites, functional laminates, fibre-based systems and nanoscale building blocks. We further discuss how process intensity, product durability and cascade utilization influence the extent to which these materials provide net climate benefits. By linking molecular design, hierarchical structure and life-cycle carbon accounting, we establish a framework connecting accessibility, reactivity and carbon permanence in bamboo-derived materials. Finally, we highlight the remaining challenges in structural control, durability and end-of-life design that will need to be overcome for bamboo materials to deliver meaningful climate benefits. Bamboo is a fast-growing lignocellulosic resource that combines high biomass productivity with the ability to sequester atmospheric carbon in long-lived materials. This Review frames bamboo as a multiscale platform for carbon-conscious materials design, linking hierarchical structure, bond-selective chemistry, processing, durability and life-cycle accounting to identify when bamboo-derived products can store carbon, displace emissions and deliver credible climate benefits sustainably at scale.
Dielectrics with high energy storage density are essential for device miniaturization and system integration. As advances in materials fabrication technologies push the breakdown strength of dielectric materials ever closer to their theoretical limits, greater emphasis should be placed on polarization enhancement for further improving the energy storage performance.
Vitreous substitutes remain a fundamental unmet need in regenerative medicine: current tamponade agents, gases and silicone oil, address immediate surgical challenges but neglect the long-term functional role of the tissue they replace. A paradigm shift towards durable, biomimetic hydrogel substitutes is not a distant ambition, but a clinical necessity.
An article in Science Advances reports a fully bioabsorbable, glucose-powered electronic bandage that uses MXene-based electrodes to harvest biochemical energy and restore wound edge fields in diabetic tissues.
An article in Science Advances reports a MXene grid architecture that delivers a conformal, transparent and efficient antenna platform suitable for both wearable devices and flexible metasurfaces.
An article in Nature Electronics introduces a low-drift, high-density electrode array based on a dry MXene–pressure-sensitive adhesive composite that enables real-time visualization of environment-stimulated electrical waves in plants.
The global pursuit of sustainable energy has accelerated research on thermoelectrics, which convert waste heat into electricity. Nevertheless, progress towards high thermoelectric figure-of-merit (ZT) remains constrained by the trade-off between electrical and thermal transport, requiring rational strategies for their decoupling. Importantly defects, which are thermodynamically unavoidable, perturb both phonons and charge carriers. This Review synthesizes emerging design principles that complement established extrinsic disorder strategies by emphasizing intrinsic control of electronic structure and lattice dynamics. We examine how band engineering and defect design enhance electrical transport without sacrificing carrier mobility, and discuss decoupling mechanisms arising from electronically driven instabilities and crystal symmetry. Moving from materials to devices, we highlight interface design for thermoelectric modules. Ultimately, we outline the potential of physics-informed descriptors derived from these design principles to enable artificial intelligence-assisted discovery and design of advanced thermoelectrics. Progress towards high-performance thermoelectrics that convert waste heat into electricity remains constrained by the coupling of electrical and thermal transport. This Review synthesizes design principles exploiting the electronic structure and lattice dynamics, and it highlights physics-informed descriptors for AI-assisted discovery and design.
There is no lack of possibilities for two-dimensional materials science; however, there is a lack of organized memory. Connecting what materials have been synthesized, how they were made and how they relate to computational predictions could shape future discoveries.
Global industrial emissions from bulk material production continue to rise despite decades of climate policy. At present, mitigation strategies for materials have focused on supply-side technological substitution, including carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and new production processes. However, these approaches are constrained by structural limits to deployment rates and depend on scarce physical and socioeconomic resources. Here, we argue that bulk material production cannot be decarbonized rapidly enough through supply-side innovation alone and that disguising this reality delays the implementation of other approaches. Instead, demand-side innovation — changes in how materials are designed, used, valued and governed — must be prioritized. Using an illustrative resource-constrained model of a national transition to net zero, we show that pathways based primarily on hidden technological substitution require implausible growth in public finance, emissions-free electricity and carbon storage. By contrast, pathways centred on material efficiency, sufficiency and societal participation can deliver substantial mitigation within more realistic resource limits. These findings imply that credible material decarbonization depends on a clear policy direction that accelerates participatory change and reduces demand for primary material production. Demand-side innovation should therefore be treated not as an optional complement but as the central pillar of effective material climate policy. Global industrial emissions from bulk materials continue to rise despite climate policies. This Perspective uses an illustrative resource-constrained model of a national transition to net zero to show that supply-side climate mitigation strategies based on technological substitutions cannot deliver at the required scale; thus, policy priorities should shift towards electric recycling and participatory demand-side innovation.
Halide perovskite transistors are advancing rapidly, yet reported mobility values remain highly sensitive to material properties, device physics and measurement protocols. Establishing reliable, reproducible and application-specific mobility metrics is essential for translating laboratory performance into credible device technologies.
Over the past decade, polymer science has shifted from precision synthesis to circular economy design. Breakthroughs in recycling, depolymerization and data-driven methods will be instrumental in designing polymers for sustainability within planetary constraints.
The biological brain stores and processes information with exceptional energy efficiency, motivating the search for alternatives to traditional von Neumann computing systems that separate memory from processing. Nanofluidic memristors have emerged as promising building blocks for non-conventional neuromorphic computing, in which ion transport under nanoscale confinement generates history-dependent conductance for analog or digital switching. Their performance is governed by surface chemistry, device geometry and electrolyte properties, which together give rise to diverse memristive mechanisms and hysteresis loop types. Exploring new materials not only improves functionality but also deepens our understanding of the diverse physical mechanisms driving memristive behaviour. Despite rapid progress, challenges remain in mechanisms identification, fabrication scalability, variability control, fine tuning of memristive properties, and integration into higher-order neuromorphic architectures. This Perspective summarizes recent advances in materials and mechanisms, outlines characterization protocols and highlights emerging applications from in-sensor computing to visual processing and reservoir computing, while discussing how tailored nanochannel materials may enable next-generation, brain-inspired iontronic neuromorphic systems. In the brain, memory involves release of neurotransmitters and transport of ions through nanoconfined channels. This Perspective discusses how nanofluidic memristors emulate this confined ion transport, highlighting the materials, design strategies and challenges involved in developing brain-inspired computing technologies.
Metamaterials can achieve exceptional functionality through careful design of their mesoscale structure. Although engineered irregularities can be advantageous, current approaches largely conform to regular structures to preserve tractability. Here we contend that network theory, enriched with geometry and physics, provides a natural framework for modelling and designing metamaterials with controlled irregularities at relevant scales. We examine how this augmented network theory can facilitate the creation of irregular metamaterials with enhanced or novel properties and how metamaterial research, in turn, is opening new directions in the broader area of physical networks. Supported by machine learning and advances in self-assembly, the emerging field of irregular metamaterial networks is poised to transform the design and scalable manufacturing of new materials. Metamaterials derived from irregular networks promise remarkable properties but require a new type of network science. This Perspective establishes a foundation built on networks endowed with geometry and physics for describing, analysing, predicting and ultimately designing metamaterials with controlled irregularity and tailored functionalities.
