Articles in 2022

Precise manipulation of colloids and cells is desired for material and life sciences. However, such control remains challenging without material modifications. Here, the authors achieve reversible single-particle manipulation with subwavelength resolution and high throughput using harmonic acoustics.

Gauge fields are essential for detecting and controlling quantum dynamical systems, but their potential has yet to be fully exploited. Here, the authors insert a single-unit-cell synthetic gauge flux into a sonic crystal with the gauge phase ranging from 0 to 2π, leading to topological Wannier cycles.

Semipermeable polymeric anion exchange membranes are essential for separation, filtration and energy conversion technologies such as fuel cells. Quasi-elastic neutron scattering is now used to disentangle water, polymer relaxation and OH⁻ diffusional dynamics in a commercially available membrane.

Transition metal oxide electrodes are promising for rechargeable batteries but are subject to suffer from structural transformations and electrochemical degradation. The evolution of oxygen-redox activity and reversibility in layered electrodes are shown to arise from cation-migration mechanisms during de/intercalation.

Wiring photosynthetic biomachineries to electrodes is promising for sustainable bio-electricity and fuel generation, but designing such interfaces is challenging. Aerosol jet printing is now used to generate hierarchical pillar array electrodes using indium tin oxide nanoparticles for high-performance semi-artificial photosynthesis.

Understanding exciton dynamics in quantum dots is important for realizing their potential in optoelectronics. Here, the authors use femtosecond transient absorption microscopy to reveal ultrafast exciton transport, enhanced at larger interdot distance and taking place within hundreds of femtoseconds after generation.

All-electrical generation, manipulation and detection of spin polarization in chiral nanowires is demonstrated.

Measuring three-dimensional dielectric tensors is desired for applications in material and soft matter physics. Here, the authors use a tomographic approach and inversely solve the vectorial wave equation to directly reconstruct dielectric tensors of anisotropic structures.

High-pressure synthesis is used to stabilize superconducting (Ba,K)SbO₃, whose properties provide a fresh perspective on the origin of superconductivity in these types of materials.

The oxygen evolution reaction is central to making chemicals and energy carriers using electrons. Metal hydroxide–organic frameworks are shown to act as a tunable catalytic platform for oxygen evolution, with π–π interactions dictating stability and transition metals modulating activity.

Mobile excitons in metals have been elusive, as screening usually suppresses their formation. Here, the authors demonstrate such mobile bound states in quasi-one-dimensional metallic TaSe₃, taking advantage of its low dimensionality and carrier density.

Two monomers with distinct solubility of their corresponding polymers in an ionic liquid enable tuning of the microstructure of the copolymers during their polymerization. Thus, energy dissipative and elastic molecular domains are created, resulting in highly tough and stretchable ionogels.

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.

Lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide is used as a conducting salt for rechargeable lithium metal batteries because of its stability, but corrosion with aluminium current collectors is an issue. A non-corrosive sulfonimide salt is shown to suppress anodic dissolution of an Al current collector at high potentials while improving cycling.

A multipole polaron, composed of a mobile electron dressed with a cloud of the quadrupole crystal-electric-field polarization, is identified in a rare-earth intermetallic.

Integer topological defects promote cellular self-organization, leading to the formation of complex cellular assemblies that trigger cell differentiation and the formation of swirling cellular pillars once differentiation is inhibited. These findings suggest that integer topological defects are important modulators of cellular differentiation and tissue morphogenesis.

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.

The liquid nature of hard glasses is demonstrated by broadband stress relaxation experiments. The rheology and dynamic transition of various glass systems can be unified by a universal scaling law in the time–stress–temperature–volume domain.

The real-space magnetic configurations of a zero-dimensional skyrmionic vortex structure is uncovered using electron holography and micromagnetic simulations.

Metal oxide–zeolite bifunctional catalysts allow coupling of reactions and so enhance catalytic processes, but structure and reactivity control is difficult. Here, a general synthesis is presented for metal oxide–zeolite double-shelled hollow spheres, which outperform other catalysts for petroleum production.