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Nature Materials now requests that all original research articles contain a Data Availability Statement declaring the accessibility of the data and where it can be found.
The 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry celebrates the development of molecular machinery and highlights the importance of fundamental and curiosity-driven research for furthering science.
Topological semimetals give access to new quantum phenomena — for example, massless fermions have not been observed as elementary particles, yet they can be realized in the form of quasiparticles in these materials — and could allow the development of robust quantum devices.
Topological semimetals and metals have emerged as a new frontier in the field of quantum materials. Novel macroscopic quantum phenomena they exhibit are not only of fundamental interest, but may hold some potential for technological applications.
Physicists have discovered a new topological phase of matter, the Weyl semimetal, whose surface features a non-closed Fermi surface whereas the low-energy quasiparticles in the bulk emerge as Weyl fermions. A brief review of these developments and perspectives on the next steps forward are presented.
Commercialization of exciton–polariton research as well as investigation of exciting physical phenomena in exciton–polariton condensates relies on improving material properties.
Although exciton–polariton lasers have been experimentally demonstrated in a variety of material systems, robust practical implementations are still challenging. Similarities with atomic Bose–Einstein condensates make the system suitable for chip-based quantum simulators for non-trivial many-body physics.
Medical professionals and robotics engineers count on materials scientists for the development of electronic skins with lifelike tactile sensing capabilities.
Tactile sensors provide robots with the ability to interact with humans and the environment with great accuracy, yet technical challenges remain for electronic-skin systems to reach human-level performance.
David Rugg is the Senior Engineering Fellow in Materials at Rolls-Royce plc. He talks to Nature Materials about the need to understand scientific fundamentals to develop reliable and high-performance materials for jet engines, and the importance of university collaborations.
The successful adoption of metallic additive manufacturing in aviation will require investment in basic scientific understanding of the process, defining of standards and adaptive regulation.
Metallic materials are fundamental to advanced aircraft engines. While perceived as mature, emerging computational, experimental and processing innovations are expanding the scope for discovery and implementation of new metallic materials for future generations of advanced propulsion systems.
Humankind's aerospace aspirations are placing unprecedented demands on vehicle propulsion systems. Advanced structural ceramics are playing a key role in addressing these challenges.
Xun Shi and Lidong Chen summarize recent progress in the field of thermoelectric materials in China, and discuss steps towards the realization of commercially viable devices.