Controlling light at the micro- and nanoscale opens up opportunities for a better understanding of the world and the development of technology. As modern electronics approaches the limits of its capabilities, photonics comes into play. Instead of manipulating relatively heavy and slow electrons, we can use light and fast photons to encode information. This will make it possible to create devices that are not only faster but also even smaller than those currently in use.
Researchers publishing in Cell Reports Medicine have described the development of a lipid nanoparticle (LNP) that delivers mRNA to neurons in order to stop the formation of tau aggregates and fight Alzheimer’s disease.
Tau and amyloids
Amyloid beta deposition between neurons and tau aggregation within neurons are both hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, and evidence suggests that the latter is potentially more significant than the former [1]. While some potential therapies have been discovered that may disaggregate these tau tangles after they have formed [2], no therapy has yet been approved by the FDA to do this.
Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a new type of lipid nanoparticle (LNP) that could one day serve as a universal immunotherapy for cancers that form solid tumors, including common variants such as cancers of the breast, liver, and colon.
One of the greatest challenges in immunotherapy is the exhaustion of T cells, the white blood cells responsible for detecting and destroying cancer cells. Many tumors produce an enzyme called IDO that dampens immune activity. Over time, exposure to the harsh environment inside tumors further weakens T cells.
The new particles counter both effects at once. By delivering a drug that blocks IDO together with mRNA that instructs cells to produce an immune-activating protein, the engineered nanoparticles reinvigorate exhausted T cells, enabling them to attack tumors without the need for costly and time-consuming, patient-specific adjustments.
RIKEN researchers have demonstrated a method that can detect tiny amounts of biomarkers in liquid samples and can distinguish between highly similar biomarkers. This promises to boost the versatility and usefulness of liquid biopsies. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Liquid biopsies are powerful tools for research and diagnosis since they can detect minute amounts of biomarkers in blood, saliva and urine. In particular, they are often used to detect enzymes that are connected to diseases.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, liquid biopsies attracted unprecedented attention as a diagnostic method for infectious diseases,” notes Rikiya Watanabe of the RIKEN Molecular Physiology Laboratory. “As a result, the effectiveness of liquid biopsies is now being recognized for both testing for infectious diseases but also for a wide range of medical diagnostics.”
Scientists at Caltech have figured out how to precisely engineer tiny three-dimensional (3D) metallic pieces with nanoscale dimensions. The process can work with any metal or metal alloy and yields components of surprising strength despite having a porous and defect-ridden microstructure, making it potentially useful in a wide range of applications, including medical devices, computer chips, and equipment needed for space missions.
The scientists describe their method in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications. The work was completed in the lab of Julia R. Greer, the Ruben F. and Donna Mettler Professor of Materials Science, Mechanics and Medical Engineering at Caltech, and Huajian Gao of Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The researchers use a technique called two-photon lithography that allows them to sequentially build an object of a desired size and shape by carefully controlling the geometry at the level of individual voxels, the smallest distinguishable volumes, or features, in a 3D image. Beginning with a light-sensitive liquid, the scientists use a tightly focused femtosecond laser beam—a femtosecond is 1 quadrillionth of a second—to build a desired shape out of a gel-like material called hydrogel. After infusing the miniature hydrogel sculpture with metallic salts, such as copper nitrate or nickel nitrate, they heat the structure twice in a specialized furnace to produce a shrunken metallic replica of the original shape.
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) have created a new and unusual state of matter—known as a supersolid—by engineering how light and matter interact inside a nanoscale device. The work, published in Nature Nanotechnology, demonstrates that this exotic quantum phase can exist at room temperature, overcoming a long-standing limitation in the field.
Supersolids are unusual because they combine two seemingly incompatible properties: Like a solid, they form an ordered, crystal-like structure. At the same time, they behave like a fluid, meaning they can flow without resistance. Until now, such states have only been observed under extremely cold conditions, close to absolute zero.
“Our work shows that you can create and control this exotic state using light,” said Wei Bao, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at RPI and senior author of the study. “What’s especially exciting is that it happens at room temperature, in a platform that can be engineered and potentially scaled.”
Over the past decades, electronics engineers have been trying to develop increasingly smaller devices that can store information reliably, even when they are not powered on. A promising type of non-volatile memory device is spintronics, solid-state systems that store and process information leveraging the spin (i.e., an intrinsic form of angular momentum) of electrons.
Researchers at University of Maryland and other institutes recently introduced a new spintronic device based on nanoscale structures based on materials that exhibit ferromagnetism (i.e., a permanent yet switchable magnetic order) and ferroelectricity (i.e., a permanent yet switchable electric polarization). This device, presented in a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, can switch between four stable resistance states and could thus serve as a multistate memory.
The system that was nanoengineered by the researchers combines two different types of devices, known as magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) and ferroelectric tunnel junctions (FTJs). An MTJ consists of two magnetic thin films separated by an insulating thin film, while an FTJ is composed of two different metal electrode layers separated by a thin ferroelectric film. Both these types of devices have proved to be promising information storage solutions.
Findings of ZZU team are published online in the journal Nature. [Photo/zzu.edu.cn]
A research team from Zhengzhou University (ZZU) has successfully synthesized bulk pure-phase hexagonal diamond and precisely resolved its crystal structure, revealing a novel phase transition mechanism. The findings were published online in the journal Nature on March 5, 2026, under the title “Bulk hexagonal diamond”
Diamond, renowned for its exceptional hardness, thermal conductivity, and wide bandgap, typically adopts a cubic structure. However, the existence of a hexagonal polymorph was first predicted theoretically in 1962 and later discovered in meteorites in 1967. Yet natural samples exist only as nanoscale grains embedded in meteorites, making isolation and property measurement extremely challenging. Moreover, the high formation energy barrier of hexagonal diamond under laboratory conditions has long hindered its synthesis, fueling debate over whether it can exist as a stable bulk material.
A research team led by Lee Hyun Jun and Noh Hee Yeon from the Division of Nanotechnology at DGIST has succeeded in implementing the world’s first two-terminal-based artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor that precisely controls hydrogen with electrical signals to enable self-learning and memory. The team’s work appears in Advanced Science.
Whereas modern AI requires the rapid processing of vast amounts of data, the separation of computation and memory in conventional computers results in speed degradation and high power consumption. “Neuromorphic semiconductors,” which perform computation and storage simultaneously by mimicking the human brain, are gaining attention as a next-generation technology that can resolve this problem. At the heart of this semiconductor is an artificial synapse device that changes its conductivity based on electrical signals and maintains that state, and the research team focused on hydrogen as the solution.
Conventional oxide-based memory devices have primarily utilized the migration of oxygen vacancies (defects) as memory. However, this has made it difficult to ensure long-term stability and uniformity between devices. In contrast, the research team solved this problem by developing its own method to precisely control the injection and discharge of hydrogen ions (H+) using an electric field.