Reviews & Analysis

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  • Circularly polarized photoexcitation initiates spin domain formation in polycrystalline halide perovskite films with strong spin–orbit coupling and local inversion symmetry breaking, as revealed by ultrafast optical microscopy.

    • Richard D. Averitt
    News & Views
  • The commercialization of electronic textile (e-textile) products requires balanced sustainability considerations. Here the authors propose an e-textile design framework involving repair, recycle, replacement and reduction that can unify environmental friendliness, market viability, supply-chain resilience and user experience quality.

    • HaoTian Harvey Shi
    • Yifei Pan
    • Yan Yan Shery Huang
    Perspective
  • Multiwalled WS2 and WSe2 nanotubes with predominantly a single chiral angle are produced in a chemical vapour deposition reactor using gold nanoparticles as a catalyst. This strategy paves the way for the growth of transition metal dichalcogenide nanotubes with controllable structures for further exploring their physical properties and potential applications.

    • M. Bar-Saden
    • R. Tenne
    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
    News & Views
  • A two-dimensional atomically flat insulator with large dielectric constant and high breakdown field strength has been successfully grown. This material could serve as the dielectric and encapsulation layers for two-dimensional materials for studying their emergent physics, as well as for next-generation electronics.

    • Taishi Takenobu
    News & Views
  • A bicontinuous conducting polymer hydrogel with high electrical conductivity, stretchability and fracture toughness in physiological environments achieves high-fidelity monitoring and effective stimulation of tissues and organs.

    • Youdi Liu
    • Faheem Ershad
    • Cunjiang Yu
    News & Views
  • High-quality aluminium nitride (AlN) heteroepitaxial films are obtained by the controlled discretization and coalescence of columns using nanopatterned AlN/sapphire templates with regular hexagonal holes. The density of dislocation etch pits in the AlN heteroepitaxial films is reduced to approximately 104 cm–2, approaching the value of that in AlN bulk single crystals.

    Research Briefing
  • A scalar scheme has been proposed to design photonic crystals that possess bulk dispersions resembling scalar waves and surface modes that support skyrmion-like textures. This approach addresses the challenges of realizing three-dimensional topological photonic crystals, which usually have complicated dispersions and leaky surface modes inside the light cone.

    Research Briefing
  • 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
    News & Views
  • A two-dimensional conjugated polymer is synthesized that demonstrates low electron effective masses and high mobility. These properties show that this material could act as a viable alternative to silicon-based semiconductors.

    • Shu Seki
    • Zhuowei Li
    News & Views
  • It is imperative that sustainability issues are considered throughout the life cycle of modern organic electronic devices. Here McCulloch and colleagues evaluate the status of embedded carbon, options for more sustainable materials, and recycling solutions both during manufacturing and at the end of life in organic electronic products.

    • Iain McCulloch
    • Michael Chabinyc
    • Scott Edward Watkins
    Perspective
  • Current-inducing switching of magnetization is crucial for future magnetic data processing technologies, but switching it with speed and energy efficiency remains challenging. Using femtosecond optical pulses, instead of conventional charge currents, is found to make spintronics not only ultrafast but also counterintuitive.

    • Dmytro Afanasiev
    • Alexey V. Kimel
    News & Views
  • Controlling the vapour transport mode with sustained release of precursor species allows for the growth of single-crystalline black phosphorus and black phosphorus–arsenic thin films on the millimetre scale.

    • Matthieu Fortin-Deschênes
    • Fengnian Xia
    News & Views
  • The direct observation of enhanced dislocation mobility in iron by in situ electron microscopy offers key insights and adds to the ongoing debate on the mechanisms of hydrogen embrittlement.

    • Vasily Bulatov
    • Wei Cai
    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
    News & Views