Articles in 2022

A combination of tunnelling spectroscopy, magnetotransport, electron diffraction and ab initio calculations have revealed that picometre-scale lattice distortions reverse magnetic anisotropy and enhance magnetic frustration in atomically thin ruthenium trichloride — a key step towards realizing a quantum spin liquid in the two-dimensional limit.

Zhu-Jun Wang and Zhi Liu discuss how advanced characterization technologies have helped to understand ancient man-made materials and human history.

Carbonization of crosslinked polyimides with kinked structures leads to carbon molecular sieves with bimodal free volumes, enabling both a high molecular-sieving ability and gas permeability.

Delivering inherently stable lithium-ion batteries with electrodes that can reversibly insert and extract large quantities of Li⁺ with inherent stability during cycling are key. Lithium-excess vanadium oxides with a disordered rocksalt structure are now investigated as high-capacity and long-life cathodes.

Carbon molecular sieves (CMS) are formed from pyrolysis of polymeric precursors, forming complex morphologies that enable gas separations. Here, by combining kinked and cross-linkable structures in the precursor, CMS membranes are reported that enable a broad spectrum of challenging gas separations.

The authors fabricate a fluxonium circuit using a granular aluminium nanoconstriction to replace the conventional superconductor–insulator–superconductor tunnel junction. Their characterization suggests that this approach will be a useful element in the superconducting qubit toolkit.

Both bosonic and fermionic collective states can emerge in two-dimensional semiconductor lattices, and mixing these species can further expand the landscape of quantum phases. Here, the authors report Bose–Fermi mixtures of neutral and charged excitons and the emergence of dual-density waves in an electrostatic lattice in a GaAs bilayer.

Nanomembranes of GaN grown by remote epitaxy form the basis of surface acoustic wave sensors in wireless electronic skins for health monitoring.

The stability of halide perovskite solar cells, determined by film morphology, is paramount to their commercialization. Here, the authors introduce a high-temperature DMSO-free method that enables better control of the grain size, texturing, orientation and crystallinity to achieve improved device operational stability.

Liquid crystal (LC) applications typically rely on defining the non-topological spatial patterns of the optical axis. Here, the authors demonstrate the topological steering of light by LC nematic vortices, futher establishing an analogy between topological light steering by LC vortices and cosmic strings.

Viscoelasticity is a universal mechanical feature of the extracellular matrix. Here the authors show that the extracellular matrix viscoelasticity guides tissue growth and symmetry breaking, a fundamental process in morphogenesis and oncogenesis.

Zhi-Wei Shan, a professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University (School of Materials Science and Engineering), talks to Nature Materials about the non-negligible impact of trace impurities in metallic structural materials.

An apparent quirk of mathematics draws on a symmetry and resolves the issue of how to determine the equilibrium shape of crystals of two-dimensional materials with asymmetric terminations.

About 700 scientists from 45 countries gathered in Dresden for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to share their latest findings on metal–organic frameworks and open frameworks compounds.

Screening of hundreds of nanoparticle polymers identifies an effective and low-toxicity formulation for the functional delivery of RNA to the lungs of distinct animal species.

This Review discusses recent progress in bioinspired nanocomposite design, emphasizing the role of hierarchical structuring at distinct length scales to create multifunctional, lightweight and robust structural materials for diverse technological applications.

Experiments with entangled photons, which enabled the pioneering of quantum information science, have been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics.