Inorganic chemistry articles within Nature Materials

Featured

  • Article |

    Ion exchange is a powerful method to access metastable materials for energy storage, but identifying lithium and sodium interchange in layered oxides remains challenging. Using such model materials, vacancy level and corresponding lithium preference are shown to be crucial for ion exchange pathway accessibility.

    • Yu Han
    • , Weihang Xie
    •  & Chong Liu

  • Article |

    Pre-intercalation with alkali-metal ions is attractive for accessing higher reversible capacity and improved rate performance in Li-ion batteries. Topochemical single-crystal transformations in a tunnel-structured positive electrode are used to clarify the effect of pre-intercalation in modifying the host lattice and altering diffusion pathways.

    • Yuting Luo
    • , Joseph V. Handy
    •  & Sarbajit Banerjee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Oxygen redox cathodes deliver higher energy densities than those based on transition metal redox but commonly exhibit voltage fade on extended cycling. The loss of O-redox capacity and voltage fade is shown to arise from a reduction in O2−/O2 redox process reversibility and O2 loss.

    • John-Joseph Marie
    • , Robert A. House
    •  & Peter G. Bruce

  • Letter |

    Multiferroics can possess multiple ferroic orders, for example, electric polarization and magnetism, and are of interest for new device applications. Here thermal control is shown to manipulate electric and magnetic orders in a single-phase quasi-two-dimensional halide perovskite.

    • Tong Zhu
    • , Xue-Zeng Lu
    •  & Hiroshi Kageyama

  • Article |

    Although using proton (H+) conductors is attractive for energy applications, practical conductivity at intermediate temperatures (200–400 °C) remains a challenge. A K2NiF4-type Ba–Li oxyhydride is shown to exhibit a temperature-independent hydrogen conductivity of more than 0.01 S cm–1 above 315 °C.

    • Fumitaka Takeiri
    • , Akihiro Watanabe
    •  & Genki Kobayashi

  • News & Views |

    A transparent suspension containing colloidal silica is used to additively manufacture three-dimensional structures and photonic devices of silica glass at the nanoscale.

    • Paolo Colombo
    •  & Giorgia Franchin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    SnSe has a very high thermoelectric figure of merit ZT, but uncommonly polycrystalline samples have higher lattice thermal conductivity than single crystals. Here, by controlling Sn reagent purity and removing SnOx impurities, a lower thermal conductivity is achieved, enabling ZT of 3.1 at 783 K.

    • Chongjian Zhou
    • , Yong Kyu Lee
    •  & In Chung

  • Article |

    Superionic conductors present liquid-like ionic diffusivity with applications ranging from energy storage to thermoelectrics. A two-dimensional type I superionic conductor α-KAg3Se2 is now reported and should help to design other materials with tailored ionic conductivities and phase transitions.

    • Alexander J. E. Rettie
    • , Jingxuan Ding
    •  & Mercouri G. Kanatzidis

  • Obituary |

    Sir John Meurig Thomas, who was one of the leading materials and catalytic scientists of his generation, sadly died in November 2020, aged 87.

    • Richard Catlow
    •  & Graham Hutchings

  • News & Views |

    Linking π-conjugated, electron-deficient ligands into atomically precise large single crystals of conducting 2D metal–organic frameworks can allow the determination of intrinsic electrical conductivity and charge transport mechanism.

    • Renhao Dong
    •  & Xinliang Feng

  • Article |

    Metal-fluoride-based lithium-ion battery cathodes are typically classified as conversion materials because reconstructive phase transitions are presumed to occur upon lithiation. Metal fluoride lithiation is now shown to be dominated instead by diffusion-controlled displacement mechanisms.

    • Xiao Hua
    • , Alexander S. Eggeman
    •  & Clare P. Grey

  • Comment |

    Classical experiments from solid-state electrochemistry can be used to determine the charge of ions in solids. This Comment also clarifies how the charge of point defects fits with the standard picture of ionic charge, and highlights differences between these electrochemical experiments and methods that probe electrons directly.

    • Roger A. De Souza
    •  & David N. Mueller

  • Article |

    Understanding the competition between thermodynamics and kinetics is crucial for the rational synthesis of inorganic materials. The synthesis of two-layer sodium metal oxides is investigated by in situ synchrotron XRD and a model is developed to rationalize why the observed phase progression proceeds through non-equilibrium three-layered intermediates.

    • Matteo Bianchini
    • , Jingyang Wang
    •  & Gerbrand Ceder

  • News & Views |

    Magnetite crystals form by the aggregation and subsequent merger of crystalline precursors, which can be interpreted in terms of colloidal assembly.

    • Jeffrey D. Rimer

  • Article |

    Fast oxide ion and proton conductors at intermediate temperature are required to improve the performance of ceramic fuel cells. An undoped hexagonal perovskite Ba7Nb4MoO20 electrolyte with high proton and oxide ion conductivity (4.0 mS cm−1) at 510 °C is now reported.

    • Sacha Fop
    • , Kirstie S. McCombie
    •  & Abbie C. Mclaughlin

  • News & Views |

    A comprehensive chemical space of potential inorganic ternary metal nitrides has been explored by computational methods as a guideline for their experimental synthesis and discovery.

    • Ralf Riedel
    •  & Zhaoju Yu

  • Article |

    High-throughput computation is especially useful for materials screening where synthesis is challenging. Here, it is used to construct a stability map of ternary nitrides, allowing discovery of stable compounds and providing insight into principles that govern nitride stability.

    • Wenhao Sun
    • , Christopher J. Bartel
    •  & Gerbrand Ceder

  • Article |

    Reversible high-voltage redox is a key component for electrochemical technologies from electrocatalysts to lithium-ion batteries. A point defect explanation for why anion redox occurs with local structural disordering and voltage hysteresis is proposed.

    • Jihyun Hong
    • , William E. Gent
    •  & William C. Chueh

  • Letter |

    Generation, transport and detection of spin-wave quanta in vanadium tetracyanoethylene, an organic ferrimagnet with low Gilbert damping, are reported.

    • Haoliang Liu
    • , Chuang Zhang
    •  & Z. Valy Vardeny

  • News & Views |

    A synchrotron X-ray diffraction experiment demonstrates an unexpected accumulation of electron density in the interlayer region of TiS2, and provides a benchmark for theoretical models of weak interlayer bonding.

    • Xiaohui Qiu
    •  & Wei Ji

  • Article |

    CsPbI3–xBrx solar cells, which undergo temperature- and moisture-driven reversible transitions between a non-perovskite transparent phase and a perovskite light-absorbing phase, are used as thermochromic photovoltaic devices integrated in windows.

    • Jia Lin
    • , Minliang Lai
    •  & Peidong Yang

  • Letter |

    Investigation of the thermal transport properties of AgCrSe2 reveals complete suppression of the transverse acoustic phonons by ultrafast dynamic disorder with only the longitudinal acoustic mode surviving, resembling the thermal conduction of liquids.

    • B. Li
    • , H. Wang
    •  & M. G. Kanatzidis

  • News & Views |

    Thermally activated defects in a blue-emitting phosphor can enhance energy transfer to the activator, and compensate for thermal quenching.

    • Philippe F. Smet
    •  & Jonas J. Joos

  • Article |

    A blue-emitting phosphor without thermal quenching is reported. The emission losses at high temperatures are compensated by a counter mechanism, originating in energy transfer between electron–hole pairs and thermally activated defect levels.

    • Yoon Hwa Kim
    • , Paulraj Arunkumar
    •  & Won Bin Im

  • Letter |

    Using MOFs as active electrodes in electrochemical double layer capacitors has so far proved difficult. An electrically conductive MOF used as an electrode is now shown to exhibit electrochemical performance similar to most carbon-based materials.

    • Dennis Sheberla
    • , John C. Bachman
    •  & Mircea Dincă

  • News & Views |

    Scaling of the phonon damping with the wavevector in glasses is found to be different from the traditionally assumed Rayleigh scattering, and related to surprising, long-range correlations in the local elasticity matrix.

    • Jeppe C. Dyre

  • Letter |

    The search for new materials that can improve the energy density of Li-ion batteries is technologically important. An electrochemically active compound with the composition Li4Mn2O5 exhibits an unprecedented discharge capacity of 355 mAh g−1.

    • M. Freire
    • , N. V. Kosova
    •  & V. Pralong

  • News & Views |

    The discovery of a ferroelectric-like structural transition in metallic LiOsO3 identifies a new class of materials with unconventional properties, providing an exotic playground for theorists and experimentalists.

    • Veerle Keppens

  • Letter |

    The emergence of conductivity at the {001} interface of LaAlO3 and SrTiO3 is one of the more celebrated examples of interface engineering. Using a microscopy approach based on a sensitive magnetometry probe, it is now shown that narrow paths of enhanced conductivity occur along the crystallographic axes of the oxide structures.

    • Beena Kalisky
    • , Eric M. Spanton
    •  & Kathryn A. Moler

  • News & Views |

    A general approach for decorating nanoparticles with a highly dense shell of DNA linkers expands the range of building blocks that can be used for DNA-mediated nanoparticle self-assembly.

    • Ulrich Simon

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