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1. Segmented flow generator for serial crystallography at the European X-ray free electron laser

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18156-7  

   Echelmeier, Austin; Cruz Villarreal, Jorvani; Messerschmidt, Marc; Kim, Daihyun; Coe, Jesse D.; Thifault, Darren; Botha, Sabine; Egatz-Gomez, Ana; Gandhi, Sahir; Brehm, Gerrit; et al (September 2020, Nature Communications)

   Abstract Serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) with X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) allows structure determination of membrane proteins and time-resolved crystallography. Common liquid sample delivery continuously jets the protein crystal suspension into the path of the XFEL, wasting a vast amount of sample due to the pulsed nature of all current XFEL sources. The European XFEL (EuXFEL) delivers femtosecond (fs) X-ray pulses in trains spaced 100 ms apart whereas pulses within trains are currently separated by 889 ns. Therefore, continuous sample delivery via fast jets wastes >99% of sample. Here, we introduce a microfluidic device delivering crystal laden droplets segmented with an immiscible oil reducing sample waste and demonstrate droplet injection at the EuXFEL compatible with high pressure liquid delivery of an SFX experiment. While achieving ~60% reduction in sample waste, we determine the structure of the enzyme 3-deoxy-D-manno-octulosonate-8-phosphate synthase from microcrystals delivered in droplets revealing distinct structural features not previously reported. 

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2. Aerial Track‐Guided Autonomous Soft Ring Robot

   https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202503288  

   Qi, Fangjie; Zhou, Caizhi; Qing, Haitao; Sun, Haoze; Yin, Jie (April 2025, Advanced Science)

   Abstract Navigating in three‐dimensional (3D) environments with precise motion control is challenging for soft robots due to their inherent flexibility. Inspired by aerial trams, here, an autonomous soft twisted ring robot is reported capable of navigating pre‐defined tracks in 3D space under constant photothermal actuation, without requiring spatiotemporal control of actuation sources. Made of liquid crystal elastomers, the ring robot, suspended on thread‐based tracks, self‐flips around its centerline when exposed to constant infrared light. Curling the twisted ring around tracks converts its self‐rotary motion into autonomous linear movement via screw theory. This mechanism enables the autonomous robot to adapt to tracks of various materials and micron‐to‐millimeter sizes, overcome obstacles like knots on tracks, transport loads over 12 times its weight, ascend and descend steep slopes up to 80°, and navigate complex paths, including circular, polygonal, and 3D spiral tracks, as well as loose threads with dynamically changing shapes. 

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3. Sub-nm kinetically controlled liquid metal printing of ternary antimony indium oxide transistors

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matt.2025.102003  

   Ong, Samuel W; Agnew, Simon A; Rahman, Md Saifur; Scheideler, William J (April 2025, Matter)

   Two-dimensional (2D) metal oxide semiconductors offer a superlative combination of high electron mobility and visible-range transparency uniquely suitable for flexible transparent electronics. Synthesis of these ultrathin (<3 nm) semiconductors by Cabrera-Mott oxidation of liquid metals could enable emerging device applications but requires the precise design of their electrostatics at the nanoscale. This study demonstrates sub-nanometer-level control over the thickness of semiconducting 2D antimony-doped indium oxide (AIO) by manipulating the kinetics of Cabrera-Mott oxidation through variable-speed liquid metal printing at plastic-compatible temperatures (175°C). By modulating both the growth kinetics and doping, we engineer the conductivity and crystallinity of AIO for integration in ultrathin channel transistors exhibiting exceptional steep turn-on, on-off ratios > 106 and an outstanding average mobility of 34.7 ± 12.9 cm2/Vs. This result shows the potential for kinetically controlling 2D oxide synthesis for various high-performance optoelectronic device applications. 

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4. Implantable optical fibers for immunotherapeutics delivery and tumor impedance measurement

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25391-z  

   Chin, Ai Lin; Jiang, Shan; Jang, Eungyo; Niu, Liqian; Li, Liwu; Jia, Xiaoting; Tong, Rong (December 2021, Nature Communications)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract Immune checkpoint blockade antibodies have promising clinical applications but suffer from disadvantages such as severe toxicities and moderate patient–response rates. None of the current delivery strategies, including local administration aiming to avoid systemic toxicities, can sustainably supply drugs over the course of weeks; adjustment of drug dose, either to lower systemic toxicities or to augment therapeutic response, is not possible. Herein, we develop an implantable miniaturized device using electrode-embedded optical fibers with both local delivery and measurement capabilities over the course of a few weeks. The combination of local immune checkpoint blockade antibodies delivery via this device with photodynamic therapy elicits a sustained anti-tumor immunity in multiple tumor models. Our device uses tumor impedance measurement for timely presentation of treatment outcomes, and allows modifications to the delivered drugs and their concentrations, rendering this device potentially useful for on-demand delivery of potent immunotherapeutics without exacerbating toxicities. 

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5. Pipestitch: An energy-minimal dataflow architecture with lightweight threads

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3613424.3614283  

   Serafin, Nathan; Ghosh, Souradip; Desai, Harsh; Beckmann, Nathan; Lucia, Brandon (October 2023, Proceedings of the 56th Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO '23))

   Computing at the extreme edge allows systems with high-resolution sensors to be pushed well outside the reach of traditional communication and power delivery, requiring high-performance, high-energy-efficiency architectures to run complex ML, DSP, image processing, etc. Recent work has demonstrated the suitability of CGRAs for energy-minimal computation, but has focused strictly on energy optimization, neglecting performance. Pipestitch is an energy-minimal CGRA architecture that adds lightweight hardware threads to ordered dataflow, exploiting abundant, untapped parallelism in the complex workloads needed to meet the demands of emerging sensing applications. Pipestitch introduces a programming model, control-flow operator, and synchronization network to allow lightweight hardware threads to pipeline on the CGRA fabric. Across 5 important sparse workloads, Pipestitch achieves a 3.49 × increase in performance over RipTide, the state-of-the-art, at a cost of a 1.10 × increase in area and a 1.05 × increase in energy. 

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