Moist air is a great challenge for manufacturing sulfide-based all-solid-state lithium batteries as the water in air will lead to severe decomposition of sulfide electrolytes and release H₂S gas. However, different with direct reaction with water, short-period air exposure of Li₁₀GeP₂S₁₂ sulfide electrolyte with controlled humidity can greatly enhance the stability of Li₁₀GeP₂S₁₂ against lithium metal, thus realizing stable Li₁₀GeP₂S₁₂ based all-solid-state lithium metal batteries. During air exposure, partial hydrolysis reaction occurs on the surface of Li₁₀GeP₂S₁₂ pellets, rapidly generating a protective decomposition layer of Li₄P₂S₆, GeS₂ and Li₂HPO₃ in dozens of seconds. This ionically conductive but electronically insulation protecting layer can effectively prevent the severe interface reaction between Li10GeP2S12 and lithium metal during electrochemical cycling. The Li/40s-air-exposed Li₁₀GeP₂S₁₂/Li cell shows long cycling stability for 1000 h. And the LiCoO₂/40s-air-exposed Li₁₀GeP₂S₁₂/Li batteries present good rate capability and long cyclic performances, showing capacity retention of 80% after 100 cycles.

Electrolytes make up a large portion of the volume of energy storage devices, but they often do not contribute to energy storage. The ability of using electrolytes to store charge would promise a significant increase in energy density to meet the needs of evolving electronic devices. Redox-flow batteries use electrolytes to store energy and show high energy densities, but the same design cannot be applied to portable or microdevices that require static electrolytes. Therefore, implementing electrolyte energy storage in a non-flow design becomes critical. This review summarizes the requirements for a stable and efficient electrolyte and diverse redox-active species dissolved in aqueous solutions. More importantly, we review the pioneering works using static electrolyte energy storage in the hope that it will pave a new way to design compact and energy-dense batteries.

High-entropy alloys (HEAs) are emerging materials that are developed based on entropy, and draw significant attention for the potential to design their chemical disorder to bring out different structural and physical characteristics. Over the past two decades, significant salient efforts have been conducted to explore many unique and useful properties of HEAs, such as overcoming the strength–ductility trade-off, outstanding thermal stability, and excellent low temperature plasticity. Here, we review the key research topic of HEAs in the following three aspects: (a) performance advantages and composition design, (b) performance-driven HEAs and (c) fabrication process-driven HEAs. Towards their industrial applications, our article reviews a large range of methods to synthesise, fabricate and process HEAs. We also discuss the current challenges and future opportunities, mainly focusing on performance breakthroughs in HEAs.

Ion-hybrid capacitors are expected to combine the high specific energy of battery-type materials and the superior specific power of capacitor-type materials and are considered as a promising energy storage technique. In particular, aqueous zinc-ion capacitors (ZIC), possessing the merits of high safety, cost-efficiency and eco-friendliness, have been widely explored with various electrode materials and electrolytes to obtain excellent electrochemical performance. In this review, we first summarize the research progress on enhancing the specific capacitance of capacitor-type materials and review the research on improving the cycling capability of battery-type materials under high current densities. Then, we look back on the effects of electrolyte engineering on the electrochemical performance of ZIC. Finally, we propose research challenges and development directions for ZIC. This review provides guidance for the design and construction of high-performance ZIC.

All-electrical driven magnetization switching attracts much attention in next-generation spintronic memory and logic devices, particularly in magnetic random-access memory (MRAM) based on the spin–orbit torque (SOT), i.e. SOT-MRAM, due to its advantages of low power consumption, fast write/read speed, and improved endurance, etc. For conventional SOT-driven switching of the magnet with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, an external assisted magnetic field is necessary to break the inversion symmetry of the magnet, which not only induces the additional power consumption but also makes the circuit more complicated. Over the last decade, significant effort has been devoted to field-free magnetization manipulation by using SOT. In this review, we introduce the basic concepts of SOT. After that, we mainly focus on several approaches to realize the field-free deterministic SOT switching of the perpendicular magnet. The mechanisms mainly include mirror symmetry breaking, chiral symmetry breaking, exchange bias, and interlayer exchange coupling. Furthermore, we show the recent progress in the study of SOT with unconventional origin and symmetry. The final section is devoted to the industrial-level approach for potential applications of field-free SOT switching in SOT-MRAM technology.

Intestinal diseases that have high mortality and morbidity rates and bring huge encumbrance to the public medical system and economy worldwide, have always been the focus of clinicians and scientific researchers. Early diagnosis and intervention are valuable in the progression of many intestinal diseases. Fortunately, the emergence of sensor materials can effectively assist clinical early diagnosis and health monitoring. By accurately locating the lesion and sensitively analyzing the level of disease markers, these sensor materials can help to precisely diagnose the stage and state of lesions, thereby avoiding delayed treatment. In this review, we provide comprehensive and in-depth knowledge of diagnosing and monitoring intestinal diseases with the assistance of sensor materials, particularly emphasizing their design and application in bioimaging and biodetection. This review is dedicated to conveying practical applications of sensor materials in the intestine, critical analysis of their mechanisms and applications and discussion of their future roles in medicine. We believe that this review will promote multidisciplinary communication between material science, medicine and relevant engineering fields, thus improving the clinical translation of sensor materials.

To fill the gap between accurate (and expensive) ab initio calculations and efficient atomistic simulations based on empirical interatomic potentials, a new class of descriptions of atomic interactions has emerged and been widely applied; i.e. machine learning potentials (MLPs). One recently developed type of MLP is the deep potential (DP) method. In this review, we provide an introduction to DP methods in computational materials science. The theory underlying the DP method is presented along with a step-by-step introduction to their development and use. We also review materials applications of DPs in a wide range of materials systems. The DP Library provides a platform for the development of DPs and a database of extant DPs. We discuss the accuracy and efficiency of DPs compared with ab initio methods and empirical potentials.

This short perspective summarizes recent findings on the role of residual lithium present on the surface of layered Ni-rich oxide cathode materials in liquid- and solid-electrolyte based batteries, with emphasis placed on the carbonate species. Challenges and future research opportunities in the development of carbonate-containing protective nanocoatings for inorganic solid-state battery

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a huge threat to human health. It is urgent to explore efficient ways to suppress the spread of AMR. Antibacterial nanozymes have become one of the powerful weapons to combat AMR due to their enzyme-like catalytic activity with a broad-spectrum antibacterial performance. However, the inherent low catalytic activity of nanozymes limits their expansion into antibacterial applications. In this regard, a variety of advanced chemical design strategies have been developed to improve the antimicrobial activity of nanozymes. In this review, we have summarized the recent progress of advanced strategies to engineer efficient nanozymes for fighting against AMR, which can be mainly classified as catalytic activity improvement, external stimuli, bacterial affinity enhancement, and multifunctional platform construction according to the basic principles of engineering efficient nanocatalysts and the mechanism of nanozyme catalysis. Moreover, the deep insights into the effects of these enhancing strategies on the nanozyme structures and properties are highlighted. Finally, current challenges and future perspectives of antibacterial nanozymes are discussed for their future clinical potential.

Flash memory with high operation speed and stable retention performance is in great demand to meet the requirements of big data. In addition, the realisation of ultrafast flash memory with novel functions offers a means of combining heterogeneous components into a homogeneous device without considering impedance matching. This report proposes a 20 ns programme flash memory with 10⁸ self-rectifying ratios based on a 0.65 nm-thick MoS₂-channel transistor. A high-quality van der Waals heterojunction with a sharp interface is formed between the Cr/Au metal floating layer and h-BN tunnelling layer. In addition, the large rectification ratio and low ideality factor (n = 1.13) facilitate the application of the MoS₂-channel flash memory as a bit-line select transistor. Finally, owing to the ultralow MoS₂/h-BN heterojunction capacitance (50 fF), the memory device exhibits superior performance as a high-frequency (up to 1 MHz) sine signal rectifier. These results pave the way toward the potential utilisation of multifunctional memory devices in ultrafast two-dimensional NAND-flash applications.

We report the synthesis of ordered mesoporous ceria (mCeO₂) with highly crystallinity and thermal stability using hybrid polymer templates consisting of organosilanes. Those organosilane-containing polymers can convert into silica-like nanostructures that further serve as thermally stable and mechanically strong templates to prevent the collapse of mesoporous frameworks during thermal-induced crystallization. Using a simple evaporation-induced self-assembly process, control of the interaction between templates and metal precursors allows the co-self-assembly of polymer micelles and Ce³⁺ ions to form uniform porous structures. The porosity is well-retained after calcination up to 900^◦C. After the thermal engineering at 700 ^◦C for 12 h (mCeO₂-700-12 h), mCeO₂ still has a specific surface area of 96 m² g^-1 with a pore size of 14 nm. mCeO₂ is demonstrated to be active for electrochemical oxidation of sulfite. mCeO₂-700-12 h with a perfect balance of crystallinity and porosity shows the fastest intrinsic activity that is about 84 times more active than bulk CeO₂ and 5 times more active than mCeO₂ that has a lower crystallinity.

Detection of ppb-level NO₂ gas under atmosphere is urgent to meet the requirements of the rapidly developing internet of things. Compared with traditional sensing methods, light illumination has been considered as a key approach for excellent gas sensor performance under moderate conditions. Herein, we developed a green-light-assisted gas sensor based on cadmium sulfide nanowires (CdS NWs) that has good NO₂ sensing capability at ambient temperature. The response values of NO₂ are 236% and 11% to 10 ppm and 12.5 ppb, respectively. Furthermore, the CdS NWs sensor has a high selectivity for NO₂ over a variety of interference gases, as well as good stability. The cleaning light activation and the sulfur vacancy-trapped charge behavior of CdS NWs are observed, which suggest a light-assisted sensing mechanism. These results suggest that light-induced charge separation behavior might significantly improve gas-sensing characteristics.