Engineering articles within Nature Materials

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  • Article |

    Laser additive manufacturing can be exploited to generate unique internally twinned nanoprecipitates in commercial titanium alloys, paving the way to fabricate ultrastrong metallic materials with intricate shapes for broad applications.

    • Yuman Zhu
    • , Kun Zhang
    •  & Aijun Huang

  • Comment |

    Structural materials are critical components for our daily lives and industries. This Comment highlights the emerging concepts in structural materials over the past two decades, particularly the multi-principal element alloys, heterostructured materials and additive manufacturing that enables the fabrication of complex architectures.

    • Robert O. Ritchie
    •  & Xiaoyu Rayne Zheng

  • Article |

    Mechanical confinement of fibroblasts into micrometre-sized channels deforms the cell nucleus, leading to temporary nuclear lamina destablization and disassembly, loss of lamina-associated domains in chromatin and a decrease in histone and DNA methylation. These mechanically induced alterations in chromatin boost the conversion of fibroblasts into neurons and pluripotent stem cells and thus can be explored for cell engineering applications.

    • Yang Song
    • , Jennifer Soto
    •  & Song Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A design paradigm to create robust robotic metamaterials using versatile gear clusters is demonstrated. It enables intriguing programmability of elastic properties and shape while preserving stability for intelligent machines.

    • Xin Fang
    • , Jihong Wen
    •  & Peter Gumbsch

  • Article |

    Electrostatic capacitors can enable ultrafast energy storage and release, but advances in energy density and efficiency need to be made. Here, by doping equimolar Zr, Hf and Sn into Bi4Ti3O12 thin films, a high-entropy stabilized Bi2Ti2O7 pyrochlore phase forms with an energy density of 182 J cm−3 and 78% efficiency.

    • Bingbing Yang
    • , Yang Zhang
    •  & Yuan-Hua Lin

  • Article |

    Fabrication of semiconductor heterojunctions typically involves a complex process and often leads to bioincompatibility. Here, the authors propose a porous heterojunction in p-type silicon via simple stain etching at ambient conditions, and apply it in optically induced biomodulation.

    • Aleksander Prominski
    • , Jiuyun Shi
    •  & Menahem Y. Rotenberg

  • News & Views |

    A simple one-step method that enables the random copolymerization of two monomers with different solubility in ionic liquids creates phase-separated elastic and stiff domains that result in ultra-tough and stretchable ionogels.

    • Gi Doo Cha
    •  & Dae-Hyeong Kim

  • Article |

    Constitutive laws underlie most physical processes, but understanding chemo-mechanical expansion in heterogeneous solids is challenging. A physically constrained image-learning approach is now proposed to obtain fundamental insight into dislocations inside battery electrodes.

    • Haitao D. Deng
    • , Hongbo Zhao
    •  & William C. Chueh

  • Article |

    Microscale architecting enables metamaterials to achieve mechanical properties not accessible to bulk materials. Here the authors show that established design protocols for the fracture of materials need to be revised to predict the failure of these materials.

    • Angkur Jyoti Dipanka Shaikeea
    • , Huachen Cui
    •  & Vikram Sudhir Deshpande

  • News & Views |

    The giant magnetoelastic effect measured in magnetic elastomers enables new energy generators for wearable and implantable electronics.

    • Denys Makarov

  • News & Views |

    An interplay between deswelling and buckling in a polymer gel is harnessed to achieve sequential snap events for repeatable jumping motion, opening the door to autonomously moving soft robots.

    • Johannes T. B. Overvelde

  • Comment |

    New classes of functional soft materials show promise to revolutionize robotics. Now materials scientists must focus on realizing the predicted performance of these materials and developing effective and robust interfaces to integrate them into highly functional robotic systems that have a positive impact on human life.

    • Philipp Rothemund
    • , Yoonho Kim
    •  & Christoph Keplinger

  • News & Views |

    A functional bioadhesive has been developed to possess properties such as mechanical compliance, electrical conductivity and optical transparency, and is utilized for bonding electronic devices to various organs in the body for up to several months.

    • Tsuyoshi Sekitani

  • News & Views |

    The processes of metallic asperities moving across each other, which are decisive in most machinery, have been visualized at the atomic scale, revealing unexpected behaviour especially when under tensile stress.

    • Udo D. Schwarz

  • News & Views |

    A seemingly disordered network of nanowires governed by thermodynamics is used as the physical ‘reservoir’ in a memristive implementation of reservoir computing to process spatiotemporal information.

    • Qiangfei Xia
    • , J. Joshua Yang
    •  & Rivu Midya

  • Why it Matters |

    Gabriele Rainò, Lukas Novotny and Martin Frimmer discuss the approach they are pursuing at ETH Zürich to provide students with an education in quantum engineering.

    • Gabriele Rainò
    • , Lukas Novotny
    •  & Martin Frimmer

  • Article |

    Multimodal nanosensors have been developed to target and respond to hallmarks in the tumour microenvironment and provide both a non-invasive urinary monitoring tool and an on-demand positron emission tomography imaging agent to localize tumour metastasis and assess response to therapy.

    • Liangliang Hao
    • , Nazanin Rohani
    •  & Sangeeta N. Bhatia

  • Review Article |

    Multiscale modelling is a powerful tool to simulate materials behaviour, which has important features across multiple length and time scales. This Review provides an overview of multiscale computation methods and discusses their development for use in material design.

    • Jacob Fish
    • , Gregory J. Wagner
    •  & Sinan Keten

  • Article |

    Porous materials can absorb energy by water infiltration, but studies at industrially relevant high-rate intrusions are rare. Here, high-rate experiments are performed on ZIFs showing high energy storage capacity, while molecular simulations allow design rules to be formulated for absorption materials.

    • Yueting Sun
    • , Sven M. J. Rogge
    •  & Jin-Chong Tan

  • Review Article |

    This Review highlights the approaches that have been utilized in the implementation of sensory feedback onto prosthetic devices to restore the sensation of touch and proprioception for amputees.

    • Stanisa Raspopovic
    • , Giacomo Valle
    •  & Francesco Maria Petrini

  • News & Views |

    Liquid-metal networks have been developed that can be stretched to extreme deformations with minimal change in electrical resistance, ushering in approaches for breathable and integrated soft and stretchable electronic devices.

    • Michael D. Bartlett

  • Letter |

    A percolation theory of alloy passivation is developed accounting for selective dissolution and the quantity of metal dissolved during the primary passivation process, which provides a quantitative way for designing corrosion-resistant alloy compositions.

    • Yusi Xie
    • , Dorota M. Artymowicz
    •  & Karl Sieradzki

  • Article |

    Elastomers swollen with solvent repeatedly snap back and forward as the solvent evaporates, which is harnessed to fabricate polymeric devices that jump autonomously.

    • Yongjin Kim
    • , Jay van den Berg
    •  & Alfred J. Crosby

  • News & Views |

    Use of polymer and small-molecule semiconductors with relatively poor miscibility helps the long-term stability of the morphology and photovoltaic performance of bulk heterojunction films used in organic solar cells.

    • Andrew T. Kleinschmidt
    •  & Darren J. Lipomi

  • Review Article |

    This Review highlights the recent emergence of stem-cell-derived embryo models for the purpose of advancing our understanding of mammalian embryology as well as their potential uses in regenerative and reproductive medicine.

    • Jianping Fu
    • , Aryeh Warmflash
    •  & Matthias P. Lutolf

  • Review Article |

    This Review provides an overview of bioengineering technologies that can be harnessed to facilitate the culture, self-organization and functionality of human pluripotent stem cell-derived organoids.

    • Elena Garreta
    • , Roger D. Kamm
    •  & Nuria Montserrat

  • Perspective |

    Although low-temperature water electrolysers are crucial for decarbonizing the industrial sector, substantial improvements in performance and deployment rates are needed. Recent developments in devices with modified architectures and designs, and practical challenges hampering large-scale deployment are discussed.

    • Marie Francine Lagadec
    •  & Alexis Grimaud

  • Article |

    A graphene nanocomposite hydrogel showing anisotropic swelling is used to realize an electrically conducting and removable bioadhesive that improves the mechanical and electrical integration of bioelectronics devices with wet dynamic tissues.

    • Jue Deng
    • , Hyunwoo Yuk
    •  & Xuanhe Zhao

  • Article |

    Computational analysis and mechanical testing demonstrate that the skeletal system of a marine sponge has, through the course of evolution, achieved a near-optimal resistance to buckling.

    • Matheus C. Fernandes
    • , Joanna Aizenberg
    •  & Katia Bertoldi

  • Article |

    Aligned arrays of single-crystalline monolayer TMD nanoribbons with high aspect ratios, as well as their lateral heterostructures, are realized, with the growth directed by the ledges on the β-Ga2O3 substrate. This approach provides an epitaxy platform for advanced electronics applications of TMD nanoribbons.

    • Areej Aljarb
    • , Jui-Han Fu
    •  & Vincent Tung

  • Comment |

    Shirakawa, MacDiarmid and Heeger received the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of conducting polymers. Here we summarize the impact of (semi)conducting polymers on fundamental research, synthetic accessibility at scale, industrial applicability and the future.

    • Xugang Guo
    •  & Antonio Facchetti

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