SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2026•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3916-3
Circularly polarized light (CPL) detection is critical to emerging technologies in optical communication, chiral sensing, and bio-inspired imaging. However, current devices rely on intrinsically chiral semiconductors that are synthetically complex and costly to scale. Here, we demonstrate robust CPL detection in achiral organic semiconductors by exploiting chiral plasmonic resonance (CPR). A self-assembled monolayer of L-phenylalanine–modified gold nanoparticles imparts optical chirality to adjacent semiconductors while enhancing photocurrent through plasmon-induced hot-carrier processes. The resulting hybrid devices exhibit nearly tenfold responsivity enhancement and a high dissymmetry factor of 0.35 at 515 nm. Mechanistic analysis reveals a field-driven, hot-carrier-assisted route to helicity sensitivity. This solution-processable approach merges plasmonic chirality with organic semiconductor versatility, providing a scalable platform for next-generation on-chip chiroptoelectronic and polarization-imaging technologies.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2025•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3569-7
Asymmetric catalysis is a cornerstone for producing enantiopure fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals, yet conventional nanoparticle catalysts suffer from limited enantioselectivity, high catalyst loading, and ill-defined active sites. Chiral metal nanoclusters (NCs) have emerged as a frontier due to their atomically precise structures and hierarchical chirality spanning the metal core, metal-ligand interface, ligand body, and assembly patterns. This review systematically summarizes recent progress in the synthesis and asymmetric catalytic applications of chiral metal NCs, organized by their core-shell structural scheme. The structural origins of cluster chirality are first elaborated, followed by synthetic methodologies delivering enantiopure metal NCs. Catalytic applications are then outlined, including enantioselective allylic alkylation, Suzuki-Miyaura coupling, and 1,4-addition, with enantiomeric excess (ee) values reaching up to 99% and turnover numbers (TONs) exceeding 1000 in selected systems. The review concludes with perspectives on designing chiral metal NCs for asymmetric catalysis. The fundamental and applicable advances summarized herein provide a framework for developing next-generation enantioselective catalysts with high atom economy, enhanced catalytic efficiency, and clear mechanistic pathways.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2025•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3659-6
Tianjin University (TJU), established in 1895 as Peiyang University under a royal charter from the Guangxu Emperor, is China's first modern university and a flagship institution directly administered by the Ministry of Education. It was among the earliest selected for Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. Over its 130-year history, TJU has pioneered Chinese higher education, granting the nation's first modern diploma in 1900 and merging with Hebei Technical College in 1951 to form Tianjin University. The university currently offers 76 undergraduate programs, 48 first-level master's disciplines, 38 first-level doctoral disciplines, and hosts 37 postdoctoral research stations. It operates 11 National Key Laboratories and has secured 28 national science and technology awards and 182 national key R&D projects since 2016. Fifteen academic disciplines rank in the top 1% of the Essential Science Indicators (ESI), with five in the top 0.1% and two—Engineering and Chemistry—in the top 0.01%. This special issue, featuring 31 high-quality papers in materials science, commemorates TJU's 130th anniversary, highlighting its historical legacy and academic achievements. The preface underscores TJU's commitment to national strategic needs, interdisciplinary integration, and cultivating top-tier innovative talent with global vision.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2025•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3429-x
Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) offer high transconductance and biocompatibility for wearable biosensing, yet their deployment in conformal, long-term electrophysiological monitoring is constrained by the mechanical mismatch and leakage of liquid electrolytes. This work introduces a double-network stretchable gel electrolyte that simultaneously achieves a Young’s modulus of 114 kPa and an elongation at break of 640%, matching soft biological tissues while enabling photopatterning for high-density device arrays. Integrating this electrolyte with a stretchable PEDOT:PSS channel yields solid-state OECTs with a volumetric capacitance–mobility product ([μC*]) of 317.71 ± 11.61 F cm⁻¹ V⁻¹ s⁻¹ and an average transconductance of 7.89 mS across uniform arrays. Under 50% tensile strain, the devices maintain stable electrical performance and acquire electrocardiogram signals with a signal-to-noise ratio of approximately 30 dB. The fabrication route is low-cost and compatible with solution processing, addressing the trade-off between ionic conductivity and mechanical robustness that has hindered previous gel electrolytes. These results demonstrate a viable pathway for stretchable, solid-state OECTs in ambulatory cardiac monitoring and high-resolution biointerfaces, where mechanical compliance and signal fidelity are paramount.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2025•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3530-3
Organic semiconductors (OSCs) are pivotal for large-area wearable devices, optoelectronic displays, logic circuits, and next-generation optoelectronics, yet their commercialization is impeded by extrinsic impurities, particularly ubiquitous oxygen. Oxygen's high electronegativity drives redox interactions within OSCs, traditionally viewed as detrimental charge-carrier traps that degrade performance and stability. Recent evidence reveals a paradoxical effect: at trace levels, oxygen doping can enhance device performance and stability by pre-emptying donor-like traps. This perspective delineates the mechanistic underpinnings of trace oxygen doping, discussing state-of-the-art modulation strategies to optimize device mobility and stability. Through systematic analysis of structure-property relationships, we examine oxygen-induced modifications in charge transport dynamics and operational reliability. We propose a development framework for oxygen element doping engineering and outline emergent challenges in interfacial stabilization protocols. The analysis synthesizes findings from recent literature, including observations that prolonged air exposure leads to oxygen adsorption and penetration into the organic semiconductor channel, forming traps. By reconciling contradictory roles of oxygen, this work provides a roadmap for precise oxygen modulation, aiming to overcome stability bottlenecks in organic field-effect transistors (OFETs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic photovoltaic cells (OPVs), and sensing devices. The perspective underscores the need for targeted strategies to control oxygen incorporation at trace levels, balancing trap passivation and doping effects to achieve optimized optoelectronic performance and operational longevity.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2025•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3632-9
Stretchable extended-gate organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) combine the high selectivity of electrochemical sensing with the mechanical compliance and in situ signal amplification of organic electronics, offering a route to wearable sweat diagnostics. However, high operating voltages and limited operational stability have restricted their practical deployment. This work introduces a stretchable ionic gel as the dielectric layer, enabling an intrinsically stretchable electrolyte-gated organic thin film transistor (EGOTFT) that operates at ultralow voltages below 1 V. The device exhibits a low operating voltage of −0.5 V, a steep subthreshold slope of 98 mV dec−1, and stable performance over 30 days. Mechanical durability is maintained under 40% strain and after 10^4 stretching-releasing cycles. The EGOTFT is integrated with an extended-gate functionalized carbon nanotube electrode for glucose sensing. The sensor demonstrates a linear response from 100 μM to 1 mM with an R-squared value of 0.997, a limit of detection of 8.72 μM, and a limit of quantification of 29.08 μM. The platform combines low power consumption, high sensitivity, fast response, and good selectivity, meeting safety and conformability requirements for wearable biomedical applications. This work advances the development of electronic skin with signal-identification capabilities and provides a viable path toward continuous, non-invasive sweat glucose monitoring.
SCIENCE CHINA Materials•2025•DOI: 10.1007/s40843-025-3641-y
Organic field-effect transistor (OFET)-based optoelectronic synapses are pivotal for neuromorphic vision, yet polycrystalline/amorphous films suffer from grain-boundary carrier scattering and threshold instability, limiting spatiotemporal fidelity. This work employs large-area C8-BTBT single crystals to fabricate a low-voltage (1 V) optoelectronic synaptic array with a coefficient of variation of 8% in synaptic weight modulation. The grain-boundary-free structure mitigates interfacial defects, ensuring device-to-device uniformity. The array emulates human visual processing under distinct cognitive states: dispersed-attention mode (V_GS = 0.5 V) yields rapid response and short-term plasticity, while focused-attention mode (V_GS = 1.5 V) enables noise suppression and long-term potentiation via polarity-dependent carrier trapping. At 9.6 μW cm⁻² illumination, the device replicates essential synaptic functions, including learning and memory. Pattern recognition tests with six grayscale intensities demonstrate that the concentration state enhances photoresponse sensitivity and contrast discrimination, resolving fine details such as speckle patterns on bird plumage, whereas the moderate attention state fails to resolve such features. This platform advances hardware-level perception-computation integration for biomimetic vision chips, offering a pathway to energy-efficient, context-aware neuromorphic systems.