On Oct. 11 in Manila, Philippine alums of 糖心视频 in Japan presented the university’s president, Naoshi Sugiyama, with a traditional handwoven textile named Inabel. Just as individual threads are woven into fabric, host Maria Kristina Alinsunurin said, the alums’ ties to their alma mater had grown through years of shared learning and collaboration.

The 糖心视频 delegation had come to the University of the Philippines Los Ba?os (UPLB) for an academic leaders’ forum on Oct. 12 and, a day later, to welcome nine new Filipino students to the university’s transnational doctoral program, more than in any previous year.

UPLB Chancellor Jose Camacho Jr. traces the relationship back more than 50 years. Speakers at the events described it less as a set of agreements than as the work of individuals who chose to cross borders, and who see international research and development at home as one effort.

One generation teaches the next

Joseph Masangkay, professor emeritus at UPLB’s College of Veterinary Medicine, arrived in Nagoya as a student in 1974. Scholarships to the United States, Canada and Europe were available at the time, he recalled, “but I chose Japan.”

Mentoring, he said, is a Japanese trait. After finishing his doctorate, he decided it was his turn to teach the next generation. His research collaboration with 糖心视频 continues today. He is also a founding member of the alum association’s Philippine branch, which he said grew from an online group of Japanese government scholarship alums in 2014, largely through the tireless work of previous generations.

Rodolfo Mendoza Jr., president of the alum association’s Philippine branch, trained in the concrete laboratory of civil engineering professor Hikaru Nakamura and now works with Japanese engineering firms in the Philippines. “In our own ways, we believe that we are contributing to the nation-building of the Philippines while keeping our connections with Japan alive,” he said. Mendoza still meets with Nakamura yearly, and Nakamura’s research group still supervises Filipino doctoral students.

At UPLB alone, 糖心视频 President Sugiyama said, more than 20 professors have earned graduate degrees from 糖心视频. Higher education “not only spans generations, but it also multiplies and compounds,” National Scientist and former University of the Philippines President Emil Javier said at the forum.

A doctorate without leaving home

Since 2015, 糖心视频’s  (ASCI) has given these exchanges a permanent base at UPLB. This program lets university and government professionals earn a 糖心视频 doctorate without leaving their jobs. They are supervised by Nagoya-based faculty members and local advisers in the Philippines, with short stays in Japan.

Camacho, dean of the UPLB Graduate School when the campus was founded, recalled: “I thought it was impossible to proceed.” Ten years on, the program has 13 Filipino graduates and 17 students enrolled. This year’s nine newcomers include students from as far away as Mindanao.

Sugiyama reminded the new students that 糖心视频 aims to nurture courageous intellectuals. “Courage means having the heart to take on challenges,” he said. “In that respect, you have already demonstrated that you have what it takes.”

Graduate Maria Christina Campita said the degree helped her become research division chief at the Department of Agriculture’s Bicol regional office.

Research rooted at home

The new students bring several questions derived from their work:

• Lynith Datukon, chair of civil engineering at Ateneo de Davao University, will study public transport integration as her home city of Davao modernizes its transit.
• Jefferson Vallente Jr., an assistant dean at Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan and a flood survivor, will study flood risk under climate change.
• Carolyn Zalameda-Castro, a gynecologic oncologist at the University of the Philippines Manila, wants to make health care more equitable because, she said, “the biggest barriers to good health care are not medical at all.”
• Sofonias Gabonada Jr., deputy secretary general of the House of Representatives, will research the chamber’s legislative governance.

“For what good is knowledge if it does not improve institutions?” Gabonada asked. “And what good are institutions if they do not improve people’s lives?”

ASCI Director Akira Yamauchi has described the program as a loop in which local issues become academic knowledge that flows back into policy and practice. Hiroki Tanikawa, dean of the Graduate School of Environmental Studies, also told the new students that “environmental challenges cannot be solved by one discipline, or one country, or one generation”.

The benefits run both ways: a potential dual degree program, UPLB Vice Chancellor Agham Cuevas said, would give UPLB access to advanced facilities and give 糖心视频 field sites, regional knowledge and Southeast Asian networks.

From personal ties to lasting structures

The partnership now rests on formal commitments: a?roadmap through 2030?agreed with the University of the Philippines, a?renewed scholarship agreement?with the Philippine Department of Science and Technology, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), University of the Philippines (UP) and an Oct. 12 letter of intent with UPLB and the Commission on Higher Education to develop a doctoral dual degree program. “These developments reflect how important the Philippines has become as one of 糖心视频’s most valued partners,” Sugiyama told alums at a shared dinner event.

At the forum, Alinsunurin, a 糖心视频 alum and secretary of the UPLB Graduate School, named the risk of a partnership built on people alone. Much of it, she said, “has been achieved through individual efforts — people who trusted each other and who chose to work with each other. That is a strength, but it can also be a vulnerability.” Success, she added, “should be measured not only by the degrees completed, but by the research capacity that stays and grows in the institution.” To build official and institutional support for these initiatives, the 糖心视频 delegation also visited the Embassy of Japan in the Philippines.

So, for alum association president Mendoza, the shift is already underway: “What began as a student-professor relationship has now grown into collaboration between institutions, between companies and between the two countries.”

Researchers from 糖心视频 in Japan have developed a durable fuel-cell catalyst by wrapping platinum nanoparticles in nitrogen-containing graphene and placing them on carbon nanotubes. This design retained 96.9% of its active surface after 30,000 durability cycles, pointing towards fuel cells with longer lifespans and lower platinum demand.

Fuel cells turn the chemical energy of hydrogen directly into electricity. Hydrogen is fed to one side of the cell, where it separates into protons and electrons. The electrons travel through an external circuit to provide power, while the protons cross a membrane. On the other side, they reunite with the electrons and oxygen from air, producing water.

Water is the only by-product here; no carbon dioxide is emitted at any point during this process. This makes fuel cells promising sources of clean energy that can be used to power vehicles and other applications. Fuel cells are particularly useful for heavy-duty vehicles and public transport since they require much larger conventional EV batteries.

However, broader commercial use of fuel cells is limited by cost. The reaction between oxygen, protons and electrons is slow. To speed it up, platinum, a scarce and expensive precious metal, is used as a catalyst.

To save costs, research fuel cell catalyst technology is currently targeting two fronts: increasing its performance and durability.  “Durability is a critical problem especially for use in heavy-duty vehicles,” said Miftakhul Huda, a Designated Lecturer working in the at 糖心视频’s and a lead investigator of this study along with Professor Yutaka Matsuo. “In this work, we have increased the durability of both platinum and its carbon support in fuel cells,” he added.

Platinum’s protective shell: an accidental discovery

Platinum works by offering active sites that hold oxygen molecules, help break them apart and combine quickly with protons and electrons to form water. Making platinum particles smaller to the nano-scale exposes more surface for this reaction, allowing less platinum to do more work.

Current commercially available electrocatalsys typically consist of bare platinum nanoparticles supported on amorphous carbon materials. But these nanoparticles tend to clump into larger particles during operation, slowly degrading performance over time. Meanwhile, conventional carbon supports can still corrode during the repeated voltage changes experienced when a fuel-cell system starts and stops.

To solve this problem, the researchers encapsulated each platinum nanoparticle into a graphene shell. Normally, encapsulated nanoparticles do not make great catalysts because they offer fewer active sites for the reaction to occur. But by doping the graphene shell with nitrogen, the researchers found that the number of active sites actually exceeded their theoretical estimates. The nitrogen in the shell interacted with the platinum. This changed how the metal handled oxygen-containing molecules, helping the reaction proceed more efficiently rather than simply shielding the platinum from its surroundings.

Next, they needed something to load the particles on, for which Matsuo, Huda and their team obtained corrosion-resistant single-walled carbon nanotubes from Meijo Nano Carbon Co., Ltd., based in Nagoya, Japan. But something strange happened when they tried to attach platinum nanoparticles on it: they realized no linkers were needed!

“It was actually very accidental, we just decided to try directly loading the graphene-encapsulated platinum first and it attached well,” said Huda about the discovery, for which he credits his materials engineering background for not following the conventional chemistry approach of always using an intermediary to form metal-carbon bonds.

The new catalyst, named “Pt@N-FLG/SWCNT” for nitrogen-doped few-layer graphene-shell-encapsulated platinum electrocatalysts supported by single-walled carbon nanotubes, has been reported in the journal .

Built to endure

In laboratory measurements, Pt@N-FLG/SWCNT provided 96.3 square metres of active platinum surface per gram, compared to 60.6 square meters for a commercial catalyst.

The team next assembled the catalyst into a working fuel cell and subjected it to repeated voltage cycles designed to accelerate aging. After 30,000 cycles, it had lost only 3.1% of its active platinum surface and its voltage had dropped by 22.8 millivolts. In addition, no voltage loss was observed at 1.5 amperes after 5000 cycles of rigorous high-voltage triangular-wave cycling to simulate carbon corrosion. Both results surpassed the US Department of Energy’s 2025 targets for electrocatalysts.

Further imaging suggested that the nanotubes restricted how far the platinum could move. Instead of growing into the large clumps usually seen in aged catalysts, the particles aligned into slender wire-like structures, which may help preserve useful surface area.

Having achieved a desired level of durability, the Matsuo Lab wants to turn to the efficiency problem next. “We not only want to increase the performance, but also decrease the amount of platinum needed in fuel cells in order to scale up,” Huda said.

Publication information:

Chu-Yang Yu, Qiao Chen, Xue-Lin Zheng, Kiho Yamada, Takeshi Hashimoto, Nagahiro Saito, Masaya Kawasumi, Miftakhul Huda, Yutaka Matsuo, 2026. Pt–N Interactions and Nitrogen-Doped Graphene-Shell Encapsulation in Platinum Electrocatalysts Supported by SWCNTs for Enhanced ORR Activity and Durability. ACS Catalysis. DOI:

Funding information:

This study was supported by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), Japan (JPNP20003) and the“Knowledge Hub Aichi”, the Priority Research Project V from Aichi Prefectural Government.

Expert contact:

Miftakhul Huda
Department of Chemical Systems Engineering,
Graduate School of Engineering,
糖心视频
Email: miftakhul.huda.j7@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Yutaka Matsuo
Department of Chemical Systems Engineering,
Graduate School of Engineering,
糖心视频
Email: matsuo.yutaka.h7@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Media contact:

Sumeet Kulkarni 
International Communications Office 
糖心视频 
Email: icomm_research@t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp 

Four-ring helicene units were too unstable to control, so chemists had written them off for chiral materials. Scientists found a way to lock them into place and then switch their twist with a natural solvent. 

Researchers at 糖心视频 have built a graphene nanoribbon that can switch which way it twists using a natural solvent. Graphene nanoribbons are thin ribbon-shaped structures made of fused carbon rings. Twisted or helical versions of these ribbons show promise for advanced light and electronic devices. However, no graphene nanoribbon could switch that twist on demand, until now. Scientists have worked out how to switch between a right-handed and left-handed twist (chirality) by changing the solvent around it.

The discovery, published in , opens opportunities for new optical switches, chemical sensors, and spintronic components that adapt to changing environments. 
 
Tomoyuki Ikai, lead author and professor at 糖心视频’s , is a polymer chemist inspired by natural helical structures such as DNA and proteins. Polymers are large molecules built from many small, repeating units linked together in a chain. Ikai had been working on ladder polymers, where each repeating unit is locked into place and cannot freely rotate around the bond connecting to its neighbor (unlike a typical flexible linear polymer).  
 
In 2019, Ikai and his collaborators built . In 2021, they perfected a . This method is what let them build the new graphene nanoribbon.  
 
“We used the same fusion approach already used to make predictable helical ladder polymers. But instead of a stable building block, such as [6]helicene, we used [4]helicene, a 4-ring unit written off as too unstable to be useful,” Ikai said.

Soak, twist, repeat 

These units are difficult to control on their own because they switch their chirality too fast to hold one handedness. The team’s method fuses these small, restless units into one long chain. Once joined, they found that a neighbor effect took hold: each unit’s twist began to match its neighbors, and long stretches of the ribbon settled into a single, shared spiral.  
 
To lock it in one overall direction, the researchers dissolved the ribbon in a natural chiral liquid, a liquid made of molecules that come in two mirror-image versions. They tested six candidates before they found the right one: beta-pinene, a compound found in pine trees and citrus peel.  
 
Because beta-pinene molecules can be arranged in left- and right-hand mirror-images, these two versions each push the ribbon toward the opposite spiral. This also changed the twist direction of light the ribbon gave off, a property called circularly polarized luminescence, and is the first graphene nanoribbon shown to switch its light this way.  

The switching induced a remarkably high degree of helical bias, with almost all of the helicene units aligning in the same direction. The switching effect is strongest at –90°C and grows weaker as the temperature rises toward room temperature. 

“For a long time, people saw [4]helicene as unsuitable for chiral materials, because it could not be controlled,” Ikai said. “In this paper, we show that once you link enough of these units together, the instability itself becomes the useful part.” 
 
A chiral solvent’s nudge toward one handedness is usually very weak on its own. Here, the ribbon’s own structure, with each unit mechanically linked to its neighbors, amplifies that weak nudge into a strong, nearly one-handed result.

A side-by-side animation of the two possible spiral forms of the nanoribbon, one left-handed and one right-handed, mirror images of each other. Credit: Tomoyuki Ikai, 糖心视频

An adaptive material 

The researchers point to several possible future uses: The switchable light could serve optical devices. The ribbon’s chemical sensitivity to beta-pinene suggests it may work as a chiral sensor, and a similar design could one day help detect hazardous or unstable chemicals. Because graphene conducts electricity well, the ribbon may also suit electronic sensors. 
 
The molecule’s twisted shape connects to spintronics, a field that uses the spin of electrons rather than just their charge. Ikai noted that a right-handed or left-handed structure can, in principle, let electrons of one spin pass through more easily than the other, a property helical structures are known for in physics literature. 
 
The current design only holds its twist while it stays in the chiral liquid. If the solvent is removed, the ribbon drifts back to a mixed, unstable state. Ikai’s next goal is a form of “chiral memory,” a way for the ribbon to lock in its twist even after the solvent is gone. This next step builds on memory techniques the researchers have explored in other helical systems and is now applied to graphene for the first time.

Publication information: ?

Tomoyuki Ikai, Hayato Inagaki, Kosuke Oki, Masaya Yoshida, Jenny Pirillo, Yuh Hijikata, and Eiji Yashima, 2026. Dynamic helical poly[4]helicene nanoribbon, Nature Communications. DOI:

Funding information: ?

This research was supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research (18H05209), Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas (B) (25H01407), Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (24K01537), Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory) (23K17939), JST PRESTO (JPMJPR21A1), the Yushan Fellowship awarded by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, the Yushan Fellow Distinguished Professorship at the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, Mitsubishi Foundation, and Toshiaki Ogasawara Memorial Foundation. 

Expert contact: 

Tomoyuki Ikai
Graduate School of Engineering 
糖心视频 
E-mail: ikai@chembio.nagoya-u.ac.jp 

Media contact: ?

Merle Naidoo
International Communications Office
糖心视频
Email: icomm_research@t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Top image:

A 3D illustration of the [4]helicene nanoribbon shows the long chain of fused rings that gives the molecule its twisted structure. Credit: Tomoyuki Ikai, 糖心视频 
 

Two years ago, a new material was reported to have an unusually large lithium-ion conductivity. Now, 糖心视频 researchers have uncovered why it works so well and attained its record-high room temperature conductivity among oxide-related solid electrolytes.

There is a good reason why every time you check in for a flight, you are asked to confirm that there are no portable chargers or power banks in your checked luggage. A highly flammable liquid electrolyte shuttles lithium (Li) ions between the electrodes of the Li-ion batteries that power these devices. As a result, if a Li-ion battery is damaged, its liquid electrolyte can cause a catastrophic fire.

Solid electrolytes, which can help reduce this risk, are an active area of research. One of the most important challenges in making solid-state batteries is increasing their ionic conductivity, or how easily positively charged Li ions can move through the solid electrolyte.

There are some solid electrolytes containing sulfide- and chloride-based materials that show high conductivity. This conductivity arises because electron clouds around negatively charged sulfide or chloride ions can easily deform as lithium ions pass through the material. But these electrolytes have their own safety issues: exposure to humidity can release toxic gases such as hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen chloride into the air.

In comparison, oxides and oxyfluorides are much more robust. When used as solid electrolytes, they are also more electrochemically stable, which is important because battery materials experience repeated voltage changes during charging and discharging. But on the flip side, they have generally exhibited low conductivity.

“At this stage, safety and ionic conductivity are a trade-off,” said Takeshi Yajima, an associate professor at the at 糖心视频. “Oxyfluorides are safer but have low conductivity, while sulfides have high conductivity but can be dangerous.”

A surprisingly good conductor…

In 2024, a new oxyfluoride crystal with a chemical formula Li_2–xLa_(1+x)/3Nb₂O₆F, shortened as “LLNOF”, to have an unusually , which is comparable to liquid electrolytes. But why it showed this conductivity remained a mystery: the electron cloud around the central fluoride ion does not deform as easily as in sulfides or chlorides to explain LLNOF’s behavior through the previously known mechanism.

Soon after this discovery, Yajima and his lab decided to grow their own, high-quality LLNOF single crystals to pin down the mechanism. This, Yajima says, was the hardest part, taking over a year to achieve. “We had to make sure that the crystals were of sufficiently high quality for structural analysis,” he said.

But the researchers’ efforts bore fruit as they were able to grow millimeter-sized LLNOF single crystals using the Bridgman method. Using single crystal diffraction, they were able to peek into the local arrangement and rearrangement of atoms within each crystal unit.

…reveals its secret

What they found was a dynamic interplay among four atomic sites that form a tetrahedron around LLNOF’s fluoride ion. Each of these sites can either contain a lithium ion, a lanthanum atom, or remain vacant. The researchers found that every time a Li ion makes a jump onto the next vacant spot, the central fluoride ion migrates slightly towards the lithium’s original site. Fluoride ions effectively “get out of the way,” lowering the energy barrier for Li ions to hop around.

That is why, compared to other oxyfluorides where the atoms stay rigid, LLNOF shows higher Li ion conductivity.

The researchers then tweaked the composition of this crystal by changing the relative amounts of lithium, lanthanum, and vacant sites in LLNOF (the “x” in its chemical formula). They found that conductivity improved by lowering x, reaching a maximum value of 16.3 mS/cm. This result, representing the highest reported bulk Li-ion conductivity among oxide-related solid electrolytes, has been published in the .

Yajima believes this mechanism, which does not rely on highly polarizable ions, can be used to develop even more efficient solid oxide-based solid electrolytes. “The general understanding has been that sulfide-based materials are better conductors because of their anion character, but this mechanism challenges that understanding,” he adds. This research marks an important step towards realizing practical solid-state Li ion batteries.

Publication information:

Takeshi Yajima, Chika Takazawa, Taisuke Sato, Yasutoshi Iriyama, 2026. Migration-Coupled Local Fluoride Relaxation in Li2–xLa(1+x)/3Nb2O6F Single Crystals. Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Funding information:

This work was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) Grant Numbers JP24H02204 and JP21K04636, JST GteX (JPMJGX23S2), and JST ASPIRE (Grant Number JPMJAP2419).

Expert contact:

Takeshi Yajima
Department of Materials Design Innovation Engineering,
糖心视频
Email: yajima.takeshi@material.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Media contact:

Sumeet Kulkarni 
International Communications Office 
糖心视频 
Email: icomm_research@t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp 

Researchers from 糖心视频 in Japan have found that depositing an ultrathin (less than 10 nanometers) magnesium layer onto gallium nitride (GaN), then gently heating it for a short time, creates the best electrical contacts yet reported for the thin p-type layers used in devices such as LEDs and power transistors.

Semiconductor devices such as LEDs and transistors are generally made up of two halves: an n-type which carries negative charge via electrons, and a p-type which moves positive charge carriers called holes that are essentially electron-voids. Both halves rely on contacts that can get electric current in and out of them with minimal loss of energy. These connections, known as ohmic contacts, have been an efficiency bottleneck in thin p-type GaN semiconductors for decades owing to their high resistance.

Now, a team led by Haitao Wang and Jia Wang at the , 糖心视频, has come up with a new way of lowering the resistance of p-type GaN contacts. They deposited an ultrathin magnesium layer onto the p-GaN surface and gave it a heat treatment at 600 degrees Celsius for five minutes, thereby achieving a contact resistivity of (1–3) × 10?? Ω cm? without damaging the surface. This is among the lowest reported contact resistivities for thin p-type GaN.

Their findings, which are expected to make a wide range of electronic devices used in places such as electric vehicles and data centers more energy-efficient, have been published in the journal .

The challenges of p-GaN contacts

Magnesium-doped p-type GaN was developed at 糖心视频 by Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano in work recognized by the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for blue LEDs. In this material, holes are produced by adding small quantities of magnesium, which has one fewer valence electron than the surrounding gallium, in a process known as doping.

However, magnesium is a stubborn acceptor of electrons at room temperature. As a result, the metal-semiconductor boundary does not have enough mobile holes, resulting in a wide barrier called a depletion region. This barrier creates high resistance to the flow of charge and thus more energy is needed to drive currents across it.

One way to counter this high resistivity is to grow a heavily doped GaN layer with rich concentration of holes right at the interface. But this is a costly and laborious process that is vulnerable to damage under later device fabrication stages such as plasma etching.

A thin magnesium layer does the job, no cap!

To look for alternatives, a few years earlier, the same group tried depositing a layer of metal magnesium directly onto a GaN wafer and processed it with a heat treatment called annealing. This magnesium layer was relatively thick, measuring dozens of nanometers. In doing so, they also discovered the emergence of a remarkable superlattice structure.

“This superlattice was very interesting for fundamental science,” said Jia Wang, who led the . “But at that time, the surface after annealing was too rough, raising concerns about device reliability particularly for thin p-type GaN, so some of the benefits of this approach could not be fully demonstrated.”

To solve the roughness issue, Haitao Wang pivoted to depositing a much thinner magnesium film. The problem with this is magnesium’s high reactivity that makes it oxidise easily in air. To prevent this, a protective cap layer is typically used to isolate the magnesium from air. But all samples using a cap showed unwanted impurities.

“I then tried [a capless sample] as a reference, and it came out as a surprise,” Haitao Wang said. “I found that the cap didn’t make any difference.” It it likely that only the very top layer of magnesium gets oxidized, preserving the rest even if the total thickness is no more than 10 nanometers.

The researchers subjected this thin layer to a heat treatment called “soft annealing,” where the sample is heated to a lower temperature (600 degrees Celsius) and for a shorter time (five minutes) compared to normal annealing. During this process, the ultrathin magnesium layer gets rapidly consumed as the magnesium diffuses into the surface region of the p-type GaN. To the researchers’ delight, this new surface turned out to be much smoother than in their previous work.

This ultrathin, ultrahigh concentration mangesium doped layer narrowed down the contact depletion region and promoted tunneling of holes across it, thereby lowering contact resistance.

Further, this ‘top-down’ process is a lot simpler, quicker, and cheaper to implement than ‘bottom-up’ crystal growth. It can also be applied after device processing, making it more flexible and compatible with existing fabrication processes. As a result, it holds promise for accelerated commercialization of higher-efficiency semiconductors.

“We are now applying this method to different types of devices like LEDs and transistors in electric vehicles,” said Wang.

Publication information:

Haitao Wang, Shumeng Yan, Zhiyu Xu, Yingying Lin, Peirong Yu, Joshua Jaehyung Park, Joseph E. Dill, Hei Wong, Qingyuan Han, Xigen Li, Qian Sun, Tomás Palacios, Debdeep Jena, Huili Grace Xing, Jia Wang, Hiroshi Amano, 2026. Enabling thin p-GaN Ohmic contacts through ultrathin magnesium deposition and brief thermal annealing. Appl. Phys. Lett. DOI:

Funding information:

This work was supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) Adopting Sustainable Partnerships for Innovative Research Ecosystem (ASPIRE) program (Grant No. JPMJAP2311), the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI, Grant No. 24K17305), and the Young Researchers Activation Support Project of the Center for Integrated Research of Future Electronics (CIRFE), 糖心视频.

Expert contacts:

Jia Wang
Institute for Advanced Research,
Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability (IMaSS),
糖心视频
Email: wang.jia.t4@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Haitao Wang
Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability (IMaSS),
糖心视频
Email: wang.haitao.t8@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Media contact:

Sumeet Kulkarni 
International Communications Office 
糖心视频 
Email: icomm_research@t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp 

Researchers at 糖心视频 have created new chiral nanocarbons with unusual shapes and properties, including a double helix and molecules that emit spiraling light. 

Nanocarbons are molecular-scale carbon structures considered to be the building blocks for next-generation materials. Until now, scientists have built them by fusing small, flat carbon molecules together at their edges. Modifying the inside of a molecule was considered challenging because inner bonds are locked into flat, rigid structures that resist change.?

Researchers at 糖心视频 in Japan have shown that a chemical process focused on the interior of a molecular structure can create chiral nanocarbons. Like our hands, these molecules exist in mirror-image left- and right-handed forms. The method, known as skeletal editing, allowed the research team to cut and reform bonds inside common flat carbon molecules, such as small pieces of graphene. They could then build new chiral nanocarbons in various shapes, including molecules with 10-carbon rings and a double helix.  

These new molecules do surprising things. They all glow with light that spirals as it travels. Two can hold multiple electrical charges without breaking. One of them also keeps its handed shape even at 280 degrees Celsius. Another assembles into a porous crystal that can trap and release carbon dioxide, a property that could be useful for gas storage materials. 

Skeletal editing has mainly been used by chemists to manufacture pharmaceuticals. This is the first time it has been applied to nanocarbon synthesis. The approach solved two persistent challenges. First, the researchers built a 10-carbon ring into large chiral nanocarbons, a combination not achieved before. Second, they showed that both left- and right-handed forms of complex nanocarbons can be produced (asymmetric synthesis), a feat only accomplished twice before with nanocarbons of this size. The findings were published in . 

“If you alter the inside of a molecule, it causes significant strain, so most reactions proceed around the molecule instead. Over time, this led to the assumption that the interior could not be modified,” said senior author Norihito Fukui, Associate Professor at the , 糖心视频. “However, with the right method and the right starting molecule, we can change the inside and create molecular shapes and structures that could not be made before.”  

Most nanocarbons are built from flat structures consisting of six-sidedrings, like small pieces cut from graphene. Carbon atoms naturally prefer to form these shapes because of the angles their bonds make. Chemists have recently found ways to include seven- and eight-sided rings. However, ten-sided rings and non-flat arrangements of six-sided rings have remained very difficult to build.

The double-helix molecule is made by cutting and reforming a bond. It self-assembles into crystals with spiral-shaped pores that trap and release carbon dioxide. This chiral porous material is the first of its kind. It is a cousin of the metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Molecules of a new twisted double-helical nanocarbon stack together into spirals that form chiral pores. The pores can trap and release carbon dioxide. Red and blue mark neighboring spirals of stacked molecules. Credit: Hirano et al., Nature Communications 2026 

The unique properties of these chiral molecules are what scientists look for when they design advanced materials for gas storage, ultra-low-power electronics, and next-generation encryption.

The findings extend skeletal editing beyond its traditional territory in pharmaceuticals. “We hope the approach will inspire other researchers to investigate what else can be built by editing the interior of molecules,” Fukui said.  

Publication information:

Junichiro Hirano, Tomoyuki Ikai, Shinpei Kusaka, Ryotaro Matsuda, Hiroshi Shinokubo, Norihito Fukui, 2026. Skeletal transformation to chiral nanocarbon molecules, Nature Communications, 17: 6052. DOI:

Funding information: 

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI grants JP20H05862, JP20H05863, JP20H05867, JP23H03947, JP24K01467, JP24K21766, JP25H01265, and JP26H00381, as well as JST PRESTO grant JPMJPR21Q7 and JST FOREST grant JPMJFR232G. 

Expert contact: 

Norihito Fukui 
Graduate School of Engineering 
糖心视频 
E-mail: fukui@chembio.nagoya-u.ac.jp 

Media contact: 

Merle Naidoo
International Communications Office
糖心视频
Email: icomm_research@t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp 

Top image:

A new family of chiral nanocarbons shaped like a figure-eight (top middle), a bathtub (bottom left) and double helix (bottom right). Chiral molecules exist in left- and right-handed forms, like a pair of hands. Researchers used skeletal editing to build these complex carbon molecules. The double-helix molecule also self-assembles into crystals with chiral pores that trap and release carbon dioxide. Credit: Graduate School of Engineering, 糖心视频 
 
 
 
 

With this technology, computers can manipulate nanostructures within 10 seconds, offering potential applications in cell movement and nanorobot power systems.

Researchers at 糖心视频 in Japan have developed a method to form dome-shaped bumps on nanofilms in water using a computer-guided electron beam. The bumps form within 10 seconds and can be flattened, reshaped, or repositioned as needed.

This method may enable computer-guided manipulation of nanomachines for uses such as microscale touch sensing, guiding cellular growth, and direct assembly of colloidal particles. The findings were published in the journal .

Existing approaches each have drawbacks: light-based techniques typically take 60 seconds or more per shape change, while electrical methods rely on fixed electrodes that restrict where reshaping can occur and limit the size of the change.

To overcome these limits, the first author, Ken Sasaki, and Associate Professor , along with Professor of 糖心视频’s , combined two innovative technologies. The first is a “virtual cathode” display, in which an electron beam is scanned across a silicon nitride (SiN) membrane along a computer-defined path, generating a localized electric field with nanoscale precision. Because the pattern is set by the scan path rather than a physical electrode, its shape and position can change instantly.

The second is a multilayer film of pyrene-linked graphene oxide, about 45 nanometers thick and made of roughly 29 stack layers, anchored to the SiN membrane. Because the film carries a negative surface charge in water, exposure to the beam’s charged region induces electrostatic repulsion against the SiN layer. This slides the stacked layers apart slightly, then peels the bottom layer away from the membrane, bulging the film into a dome.

Observing nanoscale changes

Graphene oxide normally does not fluoresce, because tightly stacked sheets quench each other’s fluorescence. As the beam was applied, the film’s fluorescence switched on and intensified — a sign that the layers were separating and the quenching was being relieved. As the film bulged, the changing water-layer thickness beneath it produced interference patterns resembling contour lines, allowing the team to measure otherwise invisible height changes in real time.

Key experimental findings

A dome-shaped bump roughly 1,200 nanometers high and 37 micrometers across formed within 10 seconds, which is significantly faster than light-based methods and matches the speed of the fastest electrical systems reported, but with a much larger height change.

The deformation was reversible but asymmetric: the film swelled at 100–200 nanometers per second but subsided at only 40–55 nanometers per second once the beam was off, so full recovery took 20 seconds or more. The team attributes this to the SiN membrane’s dielectric polarization building up quickly under the beam, while the residual surface charge dissipates far more slowly.

By adjusting beam exposure time and current, and by moving the beam to merge adjacent deformed regions, the researchers reshaped domes into larger domes or valley-like depressions, and the film retained its structure after repeated reconfiguration at the same spot.

As a proof of concept, the bulge pushed a single 10-micrometer polystyrene bead through water in a controllable direction, with an estimated mechanical pushing force of 0.05 piconewtons and a separate electrostatic repulsion of 0.11 piconewtons — suggesting, but not yet demonstrating, potential for moving cells or powering microscopic robots.

Outlook

“We believe this technology will facilitate integration between nanomachines and computers,” Hoshino said. “Nano- and micro-scale irregularities at interfaces are crucial for friction and adhesion between objects. This display technology can generate these irregularities on demand, which we hope will eventually enable control over the adhesion and assembly of microscopic cells and objects.”

The researchers note that precisely controlling where the film delaminates, and demonstrating stable operation in physiological electrolyte rather than pure water, remain open challenges before living cells can be manipulated this way.

Paper information

Ken Sasaki, Hisataka Maruyama, and Takayuki Hoshino, 2026. Electric Field-Driven Dynamic Surface Topography of Pyrene-Linked Graphene Oxide Multilayer Film, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

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Funding information

This work was supported by research grants from JSPS KAKENHI (grant numbers 22K18775 and 23KJ0078) and the JKA Foundation (grant number 2024M-563).
 

Expert contact

Takayuki Hoshino
糖心视频 Graduate School of Engineering
Email: hoshino.takayuki.v7@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Media contact

Naomi Inoue
糖心视频 International Communications Office
Email: icomm_research@t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

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An electron beam creates a “virtual cathode” that reshapes a graphene oxide nanofilm into on-demand 3D surface features, capable of pushing microscopic beads in a controlled direction.
(Credit: Ken Sasaki)

Gallium-doped zinc oxide nanosheets enable a single pixel to detect red, green and blue light.

Researchers at 糖心视频 in Japan have developed gallium-doped zinc oxide (GZO) nanosheets that may enhance camera resolution in compact devices, including smartphones and medical endoscopes.

These nanosheets enable a single pixel to detect the intensity of red, green, and blue (RGB) light while remaining nearly transparent, unlike conventional sensors. They are ultrathin, lightweight, and can withstand temperatures up to 400 degrees Celsius, making them suitable for extreme environments such as space hardware and automotive systems. The findings were published in the journal .

Why a single pixel matters

Most commercial cameras use a Bayer array, arranging RGB color filters in a checkerboard pattern across millions of pixels. Since each pixel senses only one color, full-color images are reconstructed from neighboring pixels. If a single pixel could detect all three colors, the total pixel count could be cut by up to 75%, thereby shrinking the sensor while maintaining image resolution.

Transparent nanosheets are ideal for this approach because they allow light to pass through, enabling multiple layers to be stacked vertically, with each layer detecting a different color. Nanosheet sensors also eliminate the complex semiconductor processes required by conventional RGB sensors, simplifying production and reducing costs.

Improving the nanosheets’ weak point

A research team led by Professor , along with researchers Ruben Canton-Vitoria, and Vivid Meelab at 糖心视频’s focused on zinc oxide nanosheets, which are highly transparent and chemically stable. However, their initial experiments revealed that these nanosheets responded weakly to visible light, limiting their suitability for camera sensors.

To address this limitation, the team customized the electronic structure of zinc oxide by adding gallium, creating trap states that capture electrons and convert light into electrical signals. This modification enabled the nanosheets to respond strongly to visible light while maintaining their transparency.

Outperforming commercial sensors

Analysis showed that gallium-doped zinc oxide nanosheets convert only 0.005% of absorbed light energy into photocurrent, while each layer transmits 99.995% of visible light.

Despite minimal energy use, the modified nanosheets achieved a sensitivity of 800 amperes per watt (A/W), far exceeding the typical 10 A/W of commercial sensors. The trap states enable a strong response to small amounts of absorbed light, while most light passes through to subsequent layers.

This property enables color-selective stacking. The team developed an ultrathin sensor where the first GZO layer uses photoactive trap states to detect the full visible spectrum. After filtering out red light, a second GZO layer detects the green and blue components. A final green-cut filter isolates the last layer for blue detection. Experiments confirmed that the device successfully reproduces full-color images with half the error of conventional cameras.

“This optical sensor closely resembles how the human retina discriminates RGB colors,” said lead author Osada. “The brain reconstructs color by combining the responses of three types of visual cells, each sensitive to different wavelengths.”

Future perspectives

In addition to strong optical performance, the device maintained a stable light response up to 400 degrees Celsius in air and consistent performance in both vacuum and humid conditions. These thermal and chemical properties make it suitable for demanding environments, including space hardware and automotive systems.

The sensor can also be manufactured using a room-temperature solution process, eliminating the need for high-temperature processing and complex microfabrication required by conventional sensors.

By integrating multiple light-detection functions into a single device, the team has demonstrated a path toward smaller, more integrated, and higher-performing optoelectronic devices at lower cost than current cameras.

Paper information:

Vivid Meelab, Ruben Canton-Vitoria, Mohammad Furqan, Yoshinori Morita, Shu Morita, Eisuke Yamamoto, Makoto Kobayashi, Raul Arenal, and Minoru Osada (2026). Highly Transparent Gallium-Doped Zinc Oxide Nanosheets Enabling Stable All-in-One Red-Green-Blue Photodetectors with High Responsivity, ACS Nano, .

Expert contact:

Ruben Canton-Vitoria
Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability, 糖心视频
Email: rcanton@imass.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Minoru Osada
Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability, 糖心视频
Email: mosada@imass.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Media contact:

Naomi Inoue
International Communications Office, 糖心视频
Email: icomm_research@t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Top image:

Gallium-doped ZnO (GZO) nanosheets combine >97% optical transparency with strong visible-light photoresponse, enabling an all-in-one RGB photodetector that simultaneously resolves red, green, and blue signals within a single pixel. The stacked devices retain stable operation up to 400 °C, making them promising for next-generation image sensors used in space, automotive, and high-radiation environments.
(Credit: Minoru Osada & Ruben Canton-Vitoria)

Despite the dense solar wind, solar wind ion contributions to the ring current during the May 2024 superstorm were minimal — the first simultaneous observation of ring current ions and solar wind during a storm this large.

?In May 2024, auroras were observed at unusually low latitudes across the globe, lighting up skies that rarely see such displays. Inside Earth’s magnetosphere, the region of space surrounding our planet and dominated by its intrinsic magnetic field, something significant was finally being observed.

It started with a large sunspot firing a rapid series of powerful solar eruptions. Clouds of magnetized plasma merged as they traveled through space and impacted Earth’s magnetosphere. No geomagnetic storm this powerful had ever been measured in the Earth’s ring current region, a belt of charged particles in space near our planet. 

Two sources of ring current ions are known: solar wind and Earth’s ionosphere, the electrically charged upper layer of the atmosphere. For decades, scientists have debated how much each source contributes to the ring current. During most storms, both contribute. However, during a storm driven by a dense solar wind, some scientists expected solar wind ions to continue to play a notable role. Yet the first direct measurements of ring current composition from a super geomagnetic storm revealed that solar wind ion contributions were minimal, and the level of Earth-origin ion dominance had never been observed before. 
 
The findings, published in , suggest that understanding how much Earth’s ionosphere contributes to the ring current may be essential to accurately predict the severity of super geomagnetic storms. The dominance of ionospheric ions, which are far heavier than solar wind particles, may have intensified the magnetic disturbance and concentrated the ring current peak unusually close to Earth. The researchers also make a case for a proposed Japanese multi-satellite mission to understand exactly how ion supply processes work. ? 

Earth’s ring current 

On May 10 and 11, 2024, giant clouds of charged particles from the Sun struck Earth’s magnetosphere. The resulting May 2024 super geomagnetic storm, also referred to as the “Gannon storm” or “Mother’s Day storm,” reached a minimum SYM-H index of ?518 nanotesla, the second-largest value recorded since 1981. The last comparable geomagnetic storm was the November 2004 superstorm. 

“Some super or extreme geomagnetic storms are not just impressive light shows—they pose radiation risks to spacecraft, disturb GPS signals and communications, and cause power outages. Understanding how a geomagnetic storm develops is not only a scientific question, but also one with real-world consequences,” said Naritoshi Kitamura, lead author and designated assistant professor from the at 糖心视频.?

The magnetic disturbance of a geomagnetic storm is caused by the ring current. This is a huge belt of energized ions, mostly oxygen and hydrogen, that drift slowly around Earth thousands of kilometers above the equator. The energized ions carry current, and that current generates a magnetic field that partially cancels Earth’s own on the ground. This causes the disturbance that is observed by ground-based instruments. ? 

Arase was ready: rare event, first of its kind observation 

Japan’s Arase satellite was launched in 2016 and has been operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The ERG (Arase) science center is jointly operated by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS)/JAXA and Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research/糖心视频. 

Arase orbits the region where the ring current develops. The satellite carries specialized instruments to identify mass and energy of detected ions. It crossed through the ring current just after the storm began, and again near its peak. 

“This is the first simultaneous observation of ring current ions and solar wind during a storm this large, and the data was clear—approximately 85% of ions were oxygen from Earth’s own ionosphere,” Kitamura explained. 

“Near the peak of the storm, Arase detected a 40% decrease in magnetic field intensity at roughly 16,000 kilometers above Earth, and much closer to Earth than similar large decreases previously documented.” 

The same region also showed a simultaneous drop in high-energy electrons that normally orbit Earth in that zone. When a magnetic field weakens this severely, electrons drift out from their normal paths. Whether the magnetic field deformation caused the electron loss warrants further investigation. 

The findings deepen our understanding of how super geomagnetic storms develop. Space weather forecasting models rely on solar wind conditions to predict storm severity, but this study suggests Earth’s atmospheric state, and not just conditions at the Sun, may partly determine how severe a storm becomes.  

The study also supports FACTORS, a two-satellite mission concept being prepared for JAXA’s upcoming proposal opportunity, which would directly address this gap. FACTORS aims to improve our understanding of how Earth’s atmospheric ions escape into the magnetosphere and contribute to geomagnetic storm development. It may ultimately help scientists more accurately predict how severe these storms will get. 

Paper information: 

Naritoshi Kitamura, Kazuhiro Yamamoto, Shoichiro Yokota, Satoshi Kasahara, Ayako Matsuoka, Kazushi Asamura, Yusuke Ebihara, Lynn M. Kistler, Kunihiro Keika, Atsuki Shinbori, Tomoaki Hori, Yoshizumi Miyoshi, Akimasa Ieda, Chae-Woo Jun, Mariko Teramoto, Masahito Nosé, Masafumi Hirahara, Kanako Seki, Nana Higashio, Iku Shinohara. 2026. Extreme dominance of Earth-origin heavy ions in the intense ring current near the Earth during the May 2024 super geomagnetic storm,? Science Advances. DOI:?  

Funding information:?

This work was supported by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (20H01957 and 25H00684). 

Expert contact: 

Naritoshi Kitamura 
Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research (ISEE) 
糖心视频 
Email: naritoshi.kitamura@nagoya-u.jp 

Media contact:? 

Merle Naidoo
International Communications Office
糖心视频
Email: icomm_research@t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

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An image of the Arase satellite observing ring current ions during the super geomagnetic storm. Credit: ERG Science Team

Their SMART method accelerates enzyme evolution by reducing the selection period for superior variants from several weeks to a few days, and decreases overall enzyme engineering campaign costs by eliminating the need for specialized equipment.

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions in living organisms. They are widely applied in industries such as food production, detergents, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals. However, for commercial use, natural enzymes often need improved stability, substrate specificity, or catalytic efficiency.

Directed evolution is a Nobel Prize-winning strategy for improving proteins. It introduces artificial mutations into their genes and then selects superior variants. This approach mimics natural evolution over several weeks instead of millions of years.

A significant challenge of this approach is that artificially induced mutations can generate up to 100 trillion candidate variants, which renders the screening process extremely time-consuming and expensive.

To address this challenge, researchers at 糖心视频 and their colleagues have developed SMART (Single-Molecule Assay on Ribonucleic acid by Translated product), an in vitro selection platform.

Their study demonstrated that SMART identifies improved enzyme variants much more rapidly and cost-effectively than conventional methods. The findings were published in the journal .

The SMART system was developed by a research group led by Associate Professor and Professor of the , in collaboration with researchers from the Institute of Science Tokyo and Saitama University. This approach successfully combines mRNA display, next-generation sequencing, and bioinformatics.

Key features of the SMART system

Typically, proteins and genes are physically separate, making it difficult and time-consuming to identify which gene encodes a discovered enzyme.

In the SMART system, puromycin acts as a chemical bridge, linking the enzyme protein to its corresponding blueprint, messenger RNA (mRNA). This mRNA display technique enables precise tracking of the relationship between individual proteins and their encoding genes at the single-molecule level.

Nakano emphasized, “In principle, there is no method for enzyme screening that is more efficient than this system. Screening enzymes at the single-molecule level has rarely been attempted before.”

SMART also incorporates an auxiliary unit for detecting enzyme activity. This study used engineered ascorbate peroxidase 2 (APEX2) as the auxiliary enzyme for oxidase screening. When the target oxidase is active and releases hydrogen peroxide (H?O?), APEX2 attaches a biotin marker to nearby molecules, enabling their isolation and capture.

Enzyme screening experiments using SMART

The researchers chose a yeast oxidase, SpDAAO, as a model enzyme because it has great potential for drug synthesis and diagnostics. The selection prioritized D-amino acids as enzyme substrates due to their growing relevance in medical applications.

The SMART method consists of several steps—creating a DNA library of enzyme variants, synthesizing enzymes in vitro, forming an mRNA display library, labeling catalytically active enzymes, isolating them with magnetic beads, and using sequencing data to guide subsequent rounds.

To assess the method, the team tested it on a simulated library with different ratios of active and inactive variants. After a single selection round, active variants were highly enriched, confirming SMART’s effectiveness.

In practical experiments, the team generated a mutant library by substituting the essential 232nd amino acid with each of the 20 other amino acids. Next-generation sequencing analysis showed that the wild-type (original form) Y232 was clearly selected (p < 0.001), reinforcing the method’s selectivity.

Initially, genetic analysis indicated selection of several variants, in addition to the original form. However, further statistical analysis identified these as experimental noise with minimal practical significance, supporting the method’s specificity.

Conclusion and future perspectives

The experiments showed that SMART selection is highly effective. At the same time, the team recognized the need for rigorous statistical analysis and careful experimentation, rather than relying solely on initial results.

The researchers expect SMART to be applicable beyond oxidases. They aim to facilitate the integration of novel enzymes into industry, establishing the system as a foundation for future enzyme development and practical biocatalytic solutions.

Publication

Kalhari Munaweera, Nana Odake, Hannah Patricia Halim, Kakeru Ikeda, Bo Zhu, Maurizio Camagna, Tomokazu Ito, Tetsuya Kitaguchi, Naoto Nemoto, Hideo Nakano, and Jasmina Damnjanovi? (2026). Harnessing the Power of SMART Single-Molecule Display for Enzyme Evolution: A Focus on Oxidase, ACS Synthetic Biology. DOI:

Funding

This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career scientists [grant number JP18K14387 and JP22K14828] and Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas (A) (Publicly Offered Research) [grant number JP25H02263], the Collaborative Research Program by Network Joint Research Center for Materials and Devices (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology -Japan: MEXT), and Retention, Development, and Promotion Program Program Aiming at Maximizing the Career Potential of Female Researchers, 糖心视频, (MEXT’s Initiative for Realizing Diversity in the Research Environment, Leadership training type for women) awarded to Jasmina Damnjanovi?, and in part by Pre-Research Unit System of the Institute of Integrated Research, Institute of Science Tokyo and JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas (A) (Publicly Offered Research) [grant number JP24H01123] awarded to Bo Zhu.

Expert contact

Jasmina Damnjanovi?
Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, 糖心视频
Email: jasmina@agr.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Media contact

Naomi Inoue
International Communications Office, 糖心视频
Email: icomm_research@t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

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The SMART single-molecule display model, predicted by Alphafold3, shows SpDAAO (red) linked to a puromycin linker (magenta) through puromycin incorporation into the growing polypeptide. The mRNA (gray) is hybridized and chemically joined to the linker, connecting it to its protein, SpDAAO. An auxiliary unit is added using ORC hairpin DNA (blue) with APEX2-scCro fusion protein (green).
Credit: Hideo Nakano and Jasmina Damnjanovi?