The paper featured on the outside front cover is Self-assembly and charge transport properties of a benzobisthiazole end-capped with dihexyl thienothiophene units (Greg J. McEntee, Filipe Vilela, Peter J. Skabara, Thomas D. Anthopoulos, John G. Labram, Steve Tierney, Ross W. Harrington and William Clegg, J. Mater. Chem., 2011, 21, 2091-2097). The paper reports thin-film studies and OFEt characteristics for a rigid, planar conjugated molecule, BDHTT-BBT. The authors say that this material exhibits liquid crystal properties in its thin-film state.
Unique hexagonal non-close-packed arrays of alumina obtained by plasma etching/deposition with catalytic performance is the paper highlighted on the inside front cover. (Shuyan Gao, Naoto Koshizaki, Yue Li and Liang Li, J. Mater. Chem., 2011, 21, 2087-2090.) This paper reports a hexagonal-non-close-packed alumina array with hierarchical micro-/nano-structures fabricated by plasma etching/deposition that acts as a catalyt in ethyl acetoacetate isomerization.
The back cover showcases the work of David Muñoz-Rojas, Judith Oró-Solé, Omar Ayyad and Pedro Gómez-Romero (Shaping hybrid nanostructures with polymer matrices: the formation mechanism of silver–polypyrrole core/shell nanostructures; J. Mater. Chem., 2011, 21, 2078-2086). In the paper the team show that a polypyrrole matrix forming around suspended Ag2O particles in a pyrrole solution under hydrothermal conditions is key for the formation of tortuous Ag@PPy nanostructures.
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