Taking the temperature of hot carriers: Hot carriers are expected to arise in plasmonic nanostructures because of the nonradiative decay of surface plasmons. However, identifying and determining just how “hot” these carriers actually are has been challenging. Reddy et al. devised a technique that looks at the carrier transport through a single molecular junction, which effectively acts as an energy filter, and show that it can be used to determine the distribution of hot carriers in a plasmonic nanostructure (see the Perspective by Martín-Moreno). These hot carriers could be harnessed to enhance the performance of technologies, including plasmon-driven photochemistry, solar energy–harvesting devices, and efficient photodetectors. Science , this issue p. 423 ; see also p. 375

Nested concentric structures widely exist in nature and designed systems with circles, polygons, polyhedra, and spheres sharing the same center or axis. It still remains challenging to construct discrete nested architecture at (supra)molecular level. Herein, three generations (G2−G4) of giant nested supramolecules, or Kandinsky circles, have been designed and assembled with molecular weight 17,964, 27,713 and 38,352 Da, respectively. In the ligand preparation, consecutive condensation between precursors with primary amines and pyrylium salts is applied to modularize the synthesis. These discrete nested supramolecules are prone to assemble into tubular nanostructures through hierarchical self-assembly. Furthermore, nested supramolecules display high antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive pathogen methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and negligible toxicity to eukaryotic cells, while the corresponding ligands do not show potent antimicrobial activity.

All kinds of MoS ₂ –WS ₂ lateral heterojunctions present an interesting negative differential resistive effect.