Nanoscience and technology articles within Nature Materials

Featured

  • News & Views |

    An electric field is found to be capable of controlling dislocation movement in semiconducting zinc sulfide, as observed in real time by in situ transmission electron microscopy.

    • Xufei Fang
    •  & Jürgen Rödel

  • Research Briefing |

    The transmission spectrum of single-molecule junctions provides fingerprint information on the charge-transport properties. A technique called single-molecule photoelectron tunnelling spectroscopy has been developed that enables mapping of the transmission spectrum beyond the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO)–lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) gap at room temperature and can be used to explore the energy-dependent charge transport through single-molecule junctions.

  • News & Views |

    Quantum dots are engineered to use dopant states to achieve substantially enhanced impact ionization, which is potentially useful for light-harvesting applications.

    • Miri Kazes
    •  & Dan Oron

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carrier multiplication generates multiple excitons for each absorbed photon but is normally limited by fast phonon-assisted relaxation. Here the authors achieve a threefold enhancement in multiexciton yields in Mn-doped PbSe/CdSe quantum dots, due to very fast spin-exchange interactions between Mn ions and the quantum dots that outpace energy losses arising from phonon emission.

    • Ho Jin
    • , Clément Livache
    •  & Victor I. Klimov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors demonstrate exciton-assisted resonant electron tunnelling in van der Waals heterostructure tunnel junctions. Their study elucidates tunnelling mechanisms involving either indirect or direct excitons in the absence of charge injection and reveals excitonic light emission driven by inelastic electron tunnelling.

    • Lujun Wang
    • , Sotirios Papadopoulos
    •  & Lukas Novotny

  • News & Views |

    Controlling the twist angles between three α-phase molybdenum trioxide single layers enables the programmable and reconfigurable canalization of phonon polaritons along multiple in-plane directions.

    • Siyuan Dai
    •  & Qiong Ma

  • Article |

    The transmission spectrum reflects energy alignment between electrodes and frontier orbitals in single-molecule junctions but few experimental tools exist for characterization beyond the HOMO–LUMO gap. Here, the authors develop a single-molecule photoelectron tunnelling spectroscopy approach that makes it possible to map the transmission spectrum beyond the HOMO–LUMO gap at room temperature.

    • Haojie Liu
    • , Lijue Chen
    •  & Wenjing Hong

  • Article |

    The direction of polariton canalization—its diffractionless propagation—in twisted bilayers at the magic angle is hindered by the lack of multiple magic angles. By controlling the twist angles between three α-MoO3 layers, reconfigurable and spectrally robust polariton canalization along any in-plane direction is demonstrated.

    • J. Duan
    • , G. Álvarez-Pérez
    •  & P. Alonso-González

  • News & Views |

    Above-bandgap, nanosecond laser pulses enable the localized in situ writing of spin defects in prefabricated nanophotonic cavities. The approach preserves defect and cavity mode properties, key requirements towards cavity–emitter coupling in quantum networks.

    • Sridhar Majety
    •  & Marina Radulaski

  • Letter
    | Open Access

    The authors report subatomic precision in measuring the displacement of a nanowire. Such precision is achieved by employing deep-learning enabled analysis of single-shot scattering of topologically structured superoscillatory illumination.

    • Tongjun Liu
    • , Cheng-Hung Chi
    •  & Nikolay I. Zheludev

  • News & Views |

    Local vibrational modes at substitutional impurities in monolayer graphene are resolved with a sensitivity at the chemical bonding level, revealing the impacts of different chemical configurations and mass of impurity atoms on the defect-perturbed vibrational properties.

    • Xingxu Yan

  • Perspective |

    The discovery of ferroelectric switching in ultrathin layers of hafnium dioxide has aroused significant interest for low-power non-volatile memory technologies. This Perspective discusses how lessons learned from hafnium dioxide-based ferroelectrics can be applied to other applications, and other binary oxides.

    • Beatriz Noheda
    • , Pavan Nukala
    •  & Mónica Acuautla

  • Letter |

    Using direct laser writing with a nanosecond pulsed laser operating at above-bandgap photon energies, we demonstrate the selective formation of spin defects in photonic crystal cavities in 4H-silicon carbide and their in situ characterization.

    • Aaron M. Day
    • , Jonathan R. Dietz
    •  & Evelyn L. Hu

  • News & Views |

    An optical spectroscopy approach unravels different layer-dependent correlated electron phases in a two-dimensional semiconductor heterobilayer.

    • Mauro Brotons-Gisbert
    •  & Brian D. Gerardot

  • Letter |

    Employing an oxidation-activated charge transfer strategy to oxidize transition-metal dichalcogenides into transition-metal oxides, the authors imprint plasmonic cavities with laterally abrupt doping profiles and nanoscale precision demonstrating plasmonic whispering-gallery resonators.

    • Brian S. Y. Kim
    • , Aaron J. Sternbach
    •  & D. N. Basov

  • Review Article |

    RNA-based therapeutics hold promise for the treatment of several diseases. This Review provides an overview of hydrogels for RNA delivery, discussing how the chemical nature and physical properties of hydrogels can be explored for tailored RNA loading and release, and highlighting the use of these materials in biomedical applications.

    • Ruibo Zhong
    • , Sepehr Talebian
    •  & Jinjun Shi

  • Article |

    Vibrational spectroscopy now allows for the exploration of lattice vibrational properties at the chemical-bond level, revealing the impact of chemical-bonding configurations and atomic mass on local phonon modes in graphene with a new level of sensitivity.

    • Mingquan Xu
    • , De-Liang Bao
    •  & Wu Zhou

  • News & Views |

    A polymeric nanoparticle adjuvant containing a Toll-like receptor 7 agonist elicits broad protection against viral challenges.

    • Jorge Huete-Carrasco
    •  & Ed C. Lavelle

  • News & Views |

    By exploiting optical phase-modulation at complex surface plasmon polariton patterns, as well as energy-filtered imaging, femtosecond electron pulses are dynamically shaped in phase and amplitude.

    • Armin Feist

  • Review Article |

    Persistent luminescent phosphors are promising for applications from bioimaging to multilevel encryption. Here, the authors review the design and preparation of persistent luminescence nanomaterials, developments in biological applications and outstanding challenges.

    • Liangliang Liang
    • , Jiaye Chen
    •  & Xiaogang Liu

  • Perspective |

    Colloidal nanocrystals can form into periodic superlattices exhibiting collective vibrations from the correlated motion of the nanocrystals. This Perspective discusses such collective vibrations and their as-of-yet untapped potential applications for phononic crystals, acoustic metamaterials and optomechanical systems.

    • Maximilian Jansen
    • , William A. Tisdale
    •  & Vanessa Wood

  • News & Views |

    Transforming atomically thin materials by their magnetic neighbours reveals a surprising asymmetry that allows a versatile control of the valley degrees of freedom and band topology in van der Waals heterostructures.

    • Tong Zhou
    •  & Igor Žutić

  • Article |

    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.

    • D. Rieger
    • , S. Günzler
    •  & I. M. Pop

  • News & Views |

    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.

    • Paul Erhart
    •  & J. Magnus Rahm

  • News & Views |

    Coupling charge transfer with molecular protonation processes yields electronic systems that display negative differential conductance, an effect that can be harnessed to implement a wide range of device configurations from logic gates to synaptic behaviour.

    • Joshua Hihath

  • Article |

    To realize electronic operations beyond the von Neumann bottleneck, a new type of switch that can mimic self-learning is needed. Here, the authors demonstrate all-in-one-place logic and memory operations based on dynamic molecular switch that can emulate brain-like synaptic and Pavlovian response, bringing the field a step closer to molecular-scale hardware.

    • Yulong Wang
    • , Qian Zhang
    •  & Christian A. Nijhuis

  • News & Views |

    Twisted bilayer graphene is epitaxially grown between two adjacent Cu(111) surfaces, with the twist angle controlled by the rotation of the Cu foils as designed.

    • Seong-Jun Yang
    •  & Cheol-Joo Kim

  • News & Views |

    Designing highly ordered and ultrathin nanoporous membranes achieves superior water flux, while maintaining high selectivity for NaCl rejection.

    • Chrystelle Salameh
    •  & Damien Voiry

  • Article |

    Angle tunability in twisted bilayer graphene is crucial in promoting its applications of twistronics. Here an angle replication strategy is developed to obtain centimetre-scale bilayer graphene with arbitrary twist angles.

    • Can Liu
    • , Zehui Li
    •  & Kaihui Liu

  • News & Views |

    Ensemble-level experimental evidence of exciton fine-structure splitting in perovskite quantum dots has been demonstrated, correlated to the intrinsic symmetry of these nanocrystals.

    • Gabriele Rainò
    •  & Maksym V. Kovalenko

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