The growing prevalence of counterfeit products worldwide poses serious threats to economic security and human health. Developing advanced anti-counterfeiting materials with physical unclonable functions offers an attractive defense strategy. Here, we report multimodal, dynamic and unclonable anti-counterfeiting labels based on diamond microparticles containing silicon-vacancy centers. These chaotic microparticles are heterogeneously grown on silicon substrate by chemical vapor deposition, facilitating low-cost scalable fabrication. The intrinsically unclonable functions are introduced by the randomized features of each particle. The highly stable signals of photoluminescence from silicon-vacancy centers and light scattering from diamond microparticles can enable high-capacity optical encoding. Moreover, time-dependent encoding is achieved by modulating photoluminescence signals of silicon-vacancy centers via air oxidation. Exploiting the robustness of diamond, the developed labels exhibit ultrahigh stability in extreme application scenarios, including harsh chemical environments, high temperature, mechanical abrasion, and ultraviolet irradiation. Hence, our proposed system can be practically applied immediately as anti-counterfeiting labels in diverse fields.

Cell behaviors and functions show distinct contrast in different mechanical microenvironment. Numerous materials with varied rigidity have been developed to mimic the interactions between cells and their surroundings. However, the conventional static materials cannot fully capture the dynamic alterations at the bio-interface, especially for the molecular motion and the local mechanical changes in nanoscale. As an alternative, flexible materials have great potential to sense and adapt to mechanical changes in such complex microenvironment. The flexible materials could promote the cellular mechanosensing by dynamically adjusting their local mechanics, topography and ligand presentation to adapt to intracellular force generation. This process enables the cells to exhibit comparable or even higher level of mechanotransduction and the downstream ‘hard’ phenotypes compared to the conventional stiff or rigid ones. Here, we highlight the relevant studies regarding the development of such adaptive materials to mediate cell behaviors across the rigidity limitation on soft substrates. The concept of ‘soft overcomes the hard’ will guide the future development and application of biological materials.

Skyrmions and skyrmioniums are topologically non-trivial spin textures found in chiral magnetic systems. Understanding the dynamics of these particle-like excitations is crucial for leveraging their diverse functionalities in spintronic devices. This study investigates the dynamics and evolution of chiral spin textures in [Pt/Co]₃/Ru/[Co/Pt]₃ multilayers with ferromagnetic interlayer exchange coupling. By precisely controlling the excitation and relaxation processes through combined magnetic field and electric current manipulation, reversible conversion between skyrmions and skyrmioniums is achieved. Additionally, we observe the topological conversion from a skyrmionium to a skyrmion, characterized by the sudden emergence of the skyrmion Hall effect. The experimental realization of reversible conversion between distinct magnetic topological spin textures represents a significant development that promises to expedite the advancement of the next generation of spintronic devices.