Two-dimensional materials offer a unique opportunity to explore superconductivity in the two-dimensional (2D) limit with low disorder.  IRG1 creates heterostructures of high-quality monolayers of superconductors encapsulated within insulating boron nitride, which provides protection from external disorder and oxidation.

Infection by adenovirus is initiated when Knobs (globular protein domains) on the virus periphery bind to a CAR (Coxsackie-Adenovirus Receptor) membrane protein of the host cell.

UC San Diego researchers developed and programmed cyanobacterial composite materials to remediate an organic dye pollutant. 

Nebraska MRSEC researchers have fabricated complex oxide heterostructures with atomic precision, exploiting them to build a prototype nonvolatile Mott transistor.

The UC San Diego team has achieved the assembly of checkerboard lattices from colloidal nanocrystals that harness the effects of multiple, coupled physical forces at disparate length scales (interfacial, interparticle, and intermolecular) and that do not rely on chemical binding. Colloidal Ag nanocubes were bi-functionalized with mixtures of hydrophilic and hydrophobic surface ligands and subsequently assembled at an air-water interface.

Mesoscale hierarchical helical structures with diverse functions are abundant in nature.

Researchers in the Wisconsin MRSEC have shown that depositing onto an alignment substrate creates better glass films that are anisotropic biaxially, meaning they are aligned in the plane of the substrate as well as out of plane. The in-plane orientation of the molecules affect how they interact with light and conduct electricity. In general, more alignment is better for applications ranging from flexible transistors to OLEDs to organic photovoltaics.

We describe hierarchical assemblages of colloidal rods that mimic some of the complexity and reconfigurability of biological structures. In particular, we show that chiral rod-like inclusions dissolved in an achiral colloidal membrane assemble into rafts, which are adaptable finite-sized liquid droplets that exhibit two distinct chiral states of opposite handedness. Interconverting between these two states switches the membrane-mediated raft interactions between long-ranged repulsions and attractions.

Current active matter systems, such as self propelled colloids or migrating cells, are inherently 2D, which limits the potential engineering applications. Brandeis developed the first 3D active nematic material by mixing an isotropic active fluid (Microtubules + kinesin motors) with a passive nematic colloidal liquid crystal (fd viruses). Using multiview light sheet microscopy, they explored the structure and the dynamics of topological defects in a 3D active nematic.