Materials science articles within Nature Materials

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrocaloric effects are large in a limited set of materials that display hysteretic first-order phase transitions. Here epitaxial SrTiO3 thin films are strain engineered to achieve anhysteretic second-order phase transitions, with electrocaloric effects enhanced by one order of magnitude over bulk.

    • S. Zhang
    • , J. Deliyore-Ramírez
    •  & N. D. Mathur

  • 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 |

    Conventional iontronic pressure sensors suffer from signal drift and inaccuracy owing to creep of soft materials and ion leakage. Here the authors report a leakage-free and creep-free polyelectrolyte-elastomer-based iontronic sensor that achieves a drift rate two to three orders of magnitude lower than those of conventional iontronic sensors.

    • Yunfeng He
    • , Yu Cheng
    •  & Chuan Fei Guo

  • Research Briefing |

    Single-crystal black phosphorus nanoribbons have been grown through chemical vapour transport, using black phosphorus nanoparticles as seeds. The nanoribbons orient exclusively along the zigzag direction and have good semiconductor properties that render them suitable for use as channel material in field-effect transistors.

  • Article |

    Limited datasets hinder the accurate prediction of DNA origami structures. A data-driven and physics-informed approach for model training is presented using a graph neural network to facilitate the rapid virtual prototyping of DNA-based nanostructures.

    • Chien Truong-Quoc
    • , Jae Young Lee
    •  & Do-Nyun Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Suppressed Dexter transfer is needed to achieve efficient and stable hyperfluorescence, but complex matrices must be involved. A molecular design strategy has been proposed where Dexter transfer can be substantially reduced by an encapsulated terminal emitter, leading to ‘matrix-free’ hyperfluorescence.

    • Hwan-Hee Cho
    • , Daniel G. Congrave
    •  & Hugo Bronstein

  • News & Views |

    Restricting the directional segregation of mobile ions via strategic local ion confinement allows remarkable thermoelectric performance with better stability.

    • Animesh Bhui
    •  & Kanishka Biswas

  • Article |

    Cu2Se is of interest for thermoelectrics as it is environmentally sustainable and has a high figure of merit ZT; however, copper ion migration impacts device stability. Here a co-doping strategy that combines steric and electrostatic effects is shown to improve device stability as well as improving ZT to 3.

    • Haihua Hu
    • , Yiwei Ju
    •  & Jing-Feng Li

  • News & Views |

    The atomic reconstruction and stacking arrangement in twisted trilayer graphene with a range of varying twist angles are elucidated by four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy, revealing the hierarchical moiré of moiré superstructures that govern the structural symmetry at different length scales.

    • Ruichun Luo
    •  & Wu Zhou

  • 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

  • Article |

    Single-crystal black phosphorus nanoribbons are grown uniformly on insulating substrates by chemical vapour transport growth with black phosphorus nanoparticles as seeds, demonstrating potential for application in nanoelectronic devices and the exploration of the exotic physics in black phosphorus.

    • Hongya Wang
    • , Yichen Song
    •  & Yuanbo Zhang

  • Article |

    A universal and non-destructive technique is developed to process diverse types of powder into micro- or nanofibres, providing flexibility for material design and applications based on functional particles.

    • Hanwei Wang
    • , Cheng Zeng
    •  & Huiqiao Li

  • Article |

    Solvation dynamics at picosecond timescales critically affect charge transport in aqueous systems, but conflicting values have been reported for organic electrolytes. Lifetimes on the order of 1 ns for mixtures of organic polymer and lithium salt exhibiting ultraslow dynamics of solvation shell break-up are now reported.

    • Neel J. Shah
    • , Chao Fang
    •  & Nitash P. Balsara

  • Article |

    Fast charging is driving extensive research on enhanced electrodes for high-performance electrochemical capacitors and micro-supercapacitors. Thick ruthenium nitride pseudocapacitive films are shown to exhibit enhanced capacitance with a time constant of less than 6 s.

    • Huy Dinh Khac
    • , Grace Whang
    •  & Christophe Lethien

  • Article |

    Controlling substrate elasticity during physical vapour deposition allows access to high-density stable glasses that would otherwise be formed under prohibitively slow deposition conditions on rigid substrates.

    • Peng Luo
    • , Sarah E. Wolf
    •  & Zahra Fakhraai

  • Article |

    Understanding mesoscale structure and dynamics in organic mixed ionic–electronic conductors is crucial. Mesoscale strain kinetics and structural hysteresis have been studied, and they uncover the coupling between charge carrier dynamics and mesoscale order in organic mixed ionic–electronic conductors.

    • Ruiheng Wu
    • , Dilara Meli
    •  & Christopher J. Takacs

  • Perspective |

    Two-dimensional (2D) materials, despite their small thickness, can display chirality that enables prominent asymmetric optical, electrical transport, and magnetic properties. This Perspective discusses the intriguing physics enabled by the structural chirality and the possible ways to create and control chirality in 2D materials.

    • Hanyu Zhu
    •  & Boris I. Yakobson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Active and stable catalysts to accelerate the transition from fossil fuel to renewable feedstocks, reduce energy consumption and minimize environmental footprints are needed. Electrocatalysts based on copper nanocrystals encapsulated in hybrid alumina shells stable against structural reconstruction during CO2 electroreduction are reported.

    • Petru P. Albertini
    • , Mark A. Newton
    •  & Raffaella Buonsanti

  • Article |

    Optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) is an efficient mechanism for quantum sensors and has been discovered in a few systems, but all have technological limitations. Here the authors report room temperature ODMR in single defects in GaN, promising for integrated quantum sensing applications.

    • Jialun Luo
    • , Yifei Geng
    •  & Gregory D. Fuchs

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light-induced artificial goosebumps on liquid crystal elastomer skin are used to precisely manipulate passive microstructures, achieving a localized and controllable system for programmable micromachines.

    • Mingchao Zhang
    • , Aniket Pal
    •  & Metin Sitti

  • Article |

    Precession phase of a magnetic material is shown to be recalled over timescales far exceeding that of Gilbert damping.

    • T. Makiuchi
    • , T. Hioki
    •  & E. Saitoh

  • Article |

    A large Josephson diode effect has been reported at liquid-nitrogen temperatures in twisted flakes of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ.

    • Sanat Ghosh
    • , Vilas Patil
    •  & Mandar M. Deshmukh

  • Article |

    Developing active and stable atomically dispersed catalysts is challenging because of weak non-specific interactions between catalytically active metal atoms and supports. A general method for synthesizing these catalysts via photochemical defect tuning for controlling oxygen-vacancy dynamics is proposed.

    • Chan Woo Lee
    • , Byoung-Hoon Lee
    •  & Taeghwan Hyeon

  • News & Views |

    Early detection of electrical degradation can be identified by colour change due to the chromogenic response of blended molecules in dielectric polymers.

    • Gregory A. Sotzing
    •  & Pritish S. Aklujkar

  • News & Views |

    Electronic moiré patterns can be imprinted remotely onto a target quantum material, inducing exotic interacting behaviour.

    • Arpit Arora
    •  & Justin C. W. Song

  • News & Views |

    Considering responsive materials as transient collective assemblies rather than individual shape-changing objects allows for emergent functionalities that cannot be derived from the properties of single objects but are driven by interactions between them.

    • Arri Priimagi

  • Research Briefing |

    Metal monochalcogenides — a class of van der Waals layered semiconductors — can exhibit ultrahigh plasticity. Investigation of the deformation mechanism reveals that on mechanical loading, these materials undergo local phase transitions that, coupled with the concurrent generation of a microcrack network, give rise to the ultrahigh plasticity.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Intense light pulses can induce symmetry breaking, as for the generation of ferroelectricity in SrTiO3. Using ultrafast X-ray diffuse scattering at a free-electron laser, nonlinear phonon interactions that occur on such mid-IR excitation are observed, with a theory for the dynamics presented.

    • M. Fechner
    • , M. Först
    •  & A. Cavalleri

  • Article |

    Soft building blocks tend to be near spherical, limiting their packing structures to those found in metallic systems. Here the authors report the spontaneous generation of highly deformed mesoatoms using molecular pentagons and observe Frank–Kasper phases not found in metal alloys.

    • Xian-You Liu
    • , Xiao-Yun Yan
    •  & Stephen Z. D. Cheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although silicon anodes are promising for solid-state batteries, they still suffer from poor electrochemical performance. Chemo-mechanical failure mechanisms of composite Si|Li6PS5Cl and solid-electrolyte-free silicon anodes are now revealed and should help in designing improved electrodes.

    • Hanyu Huo
    • , Ming Jiang
    •  & Jürgen Janek

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Samples of NdNiO2+x are prepared with meticulous control of the oxygen content. Their X-ray scattering and spectroscopy measurements then reveal that the previously reported charge density wave in undoped infinite-layer nickelates is, in fact, a spurious effect.

    • C. T. Parzyck
    • , N. K. Gupta
    •  & K. M. Shen

  • Article |

    Direct observation of noble gas structures has been achieved at room temperature using electron microscopy. This was enabled by trapping them between two layers of graphene, where they form two-dimensional clusters.

    • Manuel Längle
    • , Kenichiro Mizohata
    •  & Jani Kotakoski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hydrogen produced by water splitting using renewable electricity is key to achieve net-zero carbon emissions. Decoupling hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions during electrolysis is attractive but efficiency and operational challenges remain. A process producing hydrogen and oxygen in separate cells and supporting continuous operation in a membraneless system is now proposed.

    • Ilya Slobodkin
    • , Elena Davydova
    •  & Avner Rothschild

  • Article |

    The local layer alignment in a wide range of trilayer graphene structures has been extracted by interferometric four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy, uncovering the complex picture of lattice reconstruction in twisted trilayers.

    • Isaac M. Craig
    • , Madeline Van Winkle
    •  & D. Kwabena Bediako

  • Article |

    Propagation losses have limited the practical use of polaritons in photonic applications. Here the authors demonstrate a substantial enhancement in the propagation distance of phonon polaritons, employing synthetic optical excitation of complex frequency with virtual gain synthesized by combining multiple real frequency measurements.

    • Fuxin Guan
    • , Xiangdong Guo
    •  & Shuang Zhang

  • Article |

    The metal monochalcogenides are a group of van der Waals layered semiconductors with ultra-high plasticity. It is now revealed that their plasticity is attributed to the ability to transform their stacking order or phases, coupled with the concurrent generation of a micro-crack network.

    • Lok Wing Wong
    • , Ke Yang
    •  & Jiong Zhao

  • Article |

    Employing light-transformable polymers, multiple physical unclonable functions are demonstrated within a single device with all-optical reversible reconfigurability. Such devices may enable quantum secure authentication and nonlinear cryptographic key generation applications.

    • Sara Nocentini
    • , Ulrich Rührmair
    •  & Francesco Riboli

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