Recent research published in National Science Review by a team led by Dr. Rong Cao and Dr. Minna Cao from the Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Dr. Dongshuang Wu from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, has demonstrated the successful design and synthesis of a series of sub-10 nm core-shell nanocatalysts consisting of an Au core and an AuxIr1-x alloy shell.