Suction cups are widely used as switchable adhesion devices in manufacturing, robotic manipulation, and automated handling, yet their performance remains limited by insufficient suction force, leakage sensitivity, and poor adaptability to rough, cracked, porous, or irregular surfaces. Inspired by the familiar phenomenon in which a warm, water-rich tongue adheres strongly to ice, we report ice-activated hydrogel suction cups that exploit the phase transition of interfacial water into ice crystals to achieve strong and surface-adaptive adhesion. The hydrogel suction cups were fabricated by vat photopolymerization 3D printing and further programmed into different sizes and array architectures for adaptable adhesion and manipulation. At room temperature, the suction cups adhere through the combined effects of negative-pressure suction, water-mediated sealing, and liquid-bridge forces. Upon cooling, interfacial water freezes and grows into ice crystals within microscopic gaps, generating robust mechanical interlocking, while internal water crystallization stiffens the hydrogel body and reinforces the contact interface. This ice-activated mechanism enhances the adhesion strength to 1,719.67 kPa, which is approximately 100 times greater than that of polydimethylsiloxane suction cups and 55 times greater than that of hydrogel suction cups at room temperature. The suction cups exhibit robust adhesion on various substrates, including cracked or hole surfaces. Furthermore, integrated suction cup arrays facilitate the stable manipulation of objects with diverse geometries, weights, and frozen states, indicating potential applications in cold-chain handling, robotic pick-and-place operations, and automated logistics.
White light-emitting diodes (WLEDs) with a single emissive material hold great promise for next-generation lighting, display, and flexible optoelectronic applications. However, it remains difficult to achieve broadband white electroluminescence and efficient carrier utilization within a single emissive material. Here, we report vapor-deposited cerium-based halide-organic composites prepared by multi-source thermal co-evaporation for warm-white electroluminescence. The resulting films exhibit dual-band emission, with a blue band centered at 405 nm and a yellow band centered at 560 nm. Spectroscopic analysis suggests that the blue emission arises from the combined contributions of the Cs3CeI6 component and 4,4′-Bis(N-carbazolyl)-1,1′-biphenyl (CBP) fluorescence, whereas the yellow emission is associated with Ce3+-centered 5d–4f emission under a modified local environment induced by interfacial interaction with CBP. Based on these films, warm-WLEDs were fabricated using Cs3CeI6@CBP as the emissive layer. The optimized device shows Commission Internationale de l’Eclairage coordinates of (0.38, 0.39), a peak external quantum efficiency of 2.1%, a maximum luminance of 2,678 cd/m2, and stable electroluminescence spectra over a broad operating-voltage range. Furthermore, proof-of-concept flexible devices fabricated on polyethylene naphthalate substrates retain stable emission under bending conditions, highlighting the potential of these co-evaporated composite films for flexible light-emitting applications. This work establishes a facile and viable strategy to construct cerium-based halide–organic composite films via thermal co-evaporation for efficient warm-white electroluminescence and flexible light-emitting devices.
Growing demand for wearable electronics has increased interest in devices that combine mechanical compliance with local information processing. Amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (a-IGZO) is an attractive material because spatially extended metal-cation s-orbital overlap enables relatively high mobility in amorphous films, and the compatibility with low-temperature deposition supports large-area processing. This review examines recent advances in flexible a-IGZO synaptic transistors. It discusses electron transport and ionic–electronic coupling mechanisms in relation to synaptic plasticity and summarizes relevant electrical and mechanical performance metrics. It then evaluates atomic- and molecular-level engineering of channels, dielectrics, and heterointerfaces, together with gate-stack, one-dimensional, vertical, and multigate architectures. Demonstrations of in-sensor, near-sensor, reservoir, and in-memory computing are assessed across individual devices, arrays, and device-based simulations. Finally, we discuss challenges in film uniformity, reproducible weight storage, mechanically reliable array integration, and hardware–software co-design. Addressing these issues is necessary for moving flexible a-IGZO synaptic devices beyond proof-of-concept demonstrations toward reliable computing systems.
Dexterous human-machine interaction requires intuitive and expressive interfaces that can be efficiently deployed on constrained edge devices. Flexible material-based neuromotor interfaces hold considerable promise, as they decode human movement intention into natural control. Although emerging flexible electronic skins enable wearable high-fidelity data acquisition, practical deployment inevitably involves trade-offs between computational resources and portability. We present a data-centric paradigm where physiological features yield fundamental separability, providing sufficient discriminative cues for recognition. A wireless, high-bandwidth system developed for collecting various electrophysiological signals, when integrated with muscle-specific electrodes, forms a surface electromyography-based interface. Exploiting highly separable data, a 2,210-parameter model achieves 94.36% accuracy across 34 gestures and can be rapidly deployed on edge devices, establishing a new thousand-parameter benchmark for dexterous decoding. The underlying data–algorithm interactions in the data-centric paradigm are further clarified, demonstrating its feasibility in real-world scenarios. This study provides a principled and validated pathway for practical deployment of reliable neuromotor interfaces.
Next-generation implantable neural interfaces require highly flexible, biocompatible, and transient material platforms to minimize mechanical mismatch with neural tissues and avoid secondary retrieval surgeries. This study developed a soft and biodegradable neural interfacing platform fabricated from milk-derived protein (MDP) and polyvinyl alcohol functionalized with 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA) as an immunomodulatory nerve guidance conduit. The fabricated MDP-DOPA hydrogel conduits exhibited favorable protein-release kinetics, compliant mechanical stability that matched native neural tissues, and controlled biodegradation profiles. In vitro, the MDP-DOPA substrate significantly attenuated pro-inflammatory M1 macrophage polarization while selectively promoting the pro-regenerative M2 phenotype in RAW 264.7 cells, subsequently enhancing PC12 neuritogenesis through the bioactivity of released cascade peptides. In vivo, a rat 10-mm sciatic nerve defect model demonstrated that the implantation of soft MDP-DOPA conduits drastically improved structural and functional neural integration. This was evidenced by an enhanced sciatic functional index, elevated nerve conduction velocity, and robust axonal remyelination in the distal segments, closely approaching the recovery level of clinical gold-standard autografts. Furthermore, early-stage in vivo analysis verified that the platform successfully orchestrated a pro-regenerative immunomodulatory microenvironment at the interface site within 1 week. These findings highlight the potential of MDP-DOPA hydrogels as bioinstructive, soft, and stable electronic encapsulation or scaffolding platforms for next-generation implantable neural technologies for clinical translation.
Current cancer treatment still relies largely on stage-specific diagnosis and relatively fixed therapeutic regimens, while diagnostic information, therapeutic intervention, and efficacy feedback are often separated across different time windows. This fragmentation limits the ability to meet the demands of precision and individualized therapy. Theranostic platforms integrate disease diagnosis with therapeutic decision-making and can provide concurrent feedback on, or prediction of, treatment efficacy, enabling continuous assessment throughout the therapeutic course. Hydrogels are soft materials with tissue-like three-dimensional networks whose biofunctional properties permit stable loading of imaging probes and therapeutic agents, as well as controlled release and treatment monitoring at lesion sites. These features make hydrogels promising material platforms for integrated cancer theranostics. This review systematically summarizes hydrogel construction strategies for different diagnostic and therapeutic scenarios, emphasizing how matrix composition, crosslinking mode, and emerging materials influence platform performance. We further examined advances in hydrogel research for precision oncology over the past three years, with particular attention to emerging applications in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Building on this overview, we summarized the key oncological applications of hydrogel-based theranostic platforms according to distinct feedback modes. We also assessed the major limitations that currently hinder their development and discussed potential strategies to address them. Finally, we examined the challenges that continue to hinder real-world implementation and considered how integration with emerging technologies may shape the future of the field. Overall, this review provides a systematic framework for designing next-generation hydrogel-based cancer theranostic platforms that combine personalization, continuous monitoring, and realistic potential for clinical translation.
The rapid advancement of the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and personalized medicine has catalyzed unprecedented demand for wearable flexible sensors as critical interfaces bridging the physical and digital worlds. Lignocellulose-derived hydrogels have emerged as ideal candidates for next-generation motion monitoring platforms, owing to their exceptional flexibility, tissue-like mechanical compliance, intrinsic biocompatibility, and sustainability. In contrast to synthetic petroleum-based polymers and precious metal conductors, lignocellulose - the most abundant natural polymer resource on Earth - offers a unique combination of hierarchical architectures from molecular chains to tissue-level pores, rich chemical modifiability, and inherent biodegradability. This review systematically examines recent progress in lignocellulose-based flexible hydrogel sensors for motion monitoring, innovatively adopting a “motion demand-oriented” perspective. We first discuss the intrinsic advantages of lignocellulose, including the synergistic roles of cellulose (high-strength framework), hemicellulose (dynamic cross-linking and flexibility), and lignin (adhesion, UV resistance, and antioxidant properties), and elaborate on top-down and bottom-up engineering strategies for constructing programmable hydrogel networks. We then provide an in-depth analysis of multiscale sensing mechanisms, encompassing piezoresistive, piezoelectric, triboelectric, capacitive, temperature, and humidity transduction pathways. Furthermore, we highlight cutting-edge applications ranging from macroscopic joint motion detection and subtle physiological signal capture to healthcare monitoring, rehabilitation assistance, and human-machine interaction. Finally, this review discusses key challenges and future development directions in this field from the perspectives of material design, structural regulation, and system integration, providing a theoretical basis and design ideas for the next generation of sustainable, high-performance, and intelligent flexible sensing systems.