Physical sciences articles within Nature Materials

Featured

  • Letter |

    The mechanical properties of many materials are different on the nanoscale than they are in the bulk. In the case of metallic glasses, nanometre-scale samples show enhanced ductility. This tensile ductility has now been quantified for samples with diameters down to 100 nm, where a new regime of increased ductility during deformation is observed.

    • Dongchan Jang
    •  & Julia R. Greer

  • News & Views |

    Stable particle-like molecular architectures are written in a frustrated chiral-nematic liquid crystal using a vortex laser beam. This fundamentally new mechanism to form toroidal features with anisotropic optical properties has great potential to create new applications in liquid-crystal photonics.

    • Dirk J. Broer

  • Editorial |

    The opportunity of reaching a strong agreement on carbon emission cuts must not be missed again.

  • News & Views |

    By using an ionic liquid as a gate dielectric, superconductivity can be induced in an inorganic band insulator up to a temperature of 15 K by an electric field, opening new directions in superconductivity research.

    • Kosmas Prassides

  • Commentary |

    To deepen understanding and hasten the development of treatments, cancer needs to be modelled more accurately in vitro; applying tissue-engineering concepts and approaches in this field could bridge the gap between two-dimensional studies and in vivo animal models.

    • Dietmar W. Hutmacher

  • Letter |

    Creating p–n junctions using semiconducting polymers has proved to be challenging because of difficulties in depositing semiconducting polymer films. Now, by using a cationic conjugated-polymer electrolyte and a neutral conjugated-polymer layer, devices with a fixed bilayer organic p–n junction and fast response times have been fabricated.

    • Corey V. Hoven
    • , Huiping Wang
    •  & Guillermo C. Bazan

  • Letter |

    In most suspensions viscosity decreases with increasing shear rate. The opposite effect, shear thickening, is a problem for industrial applications. An understanding of how particle interactions in suspensions influence shear thickening may lead to a solution of this problem through the design of smart suspensions.

    • Eric Brown
    • , Nicole A. Forman
    •  & Heinrich M. Jaeger

  • Letter |

    Electron transport through metal–molecule contacts greatly affects the operation of electronic devices based on organic semiconductors and single-molecule junctions, but the nature of the contact barrier remains poorly understood. Scanning tunnelling microscopy experiments reveal a significant variation on the submolecular scale, leading to a scheme to locally manipulate the potential barrier of the molecular nanocontacts with atomic precision.

    • Lucia Vitali
    • , Giacomo Levita
    •  & Klaus Kern

  • Article |

    Small interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA) is used to silence genes and treat conditions such as human immunodeficiency virus. Safe and efficient delivery, however, is proving problematic. A new class of biologically active siRNA polyelectrolyte complexes based on chemically self-crosslinked siRNA is presented, which shows greatly enhanced gene-silencing efficiencies in vitro and in vivo without significantly eliciting an immune response.

    • Hyejung Mok
    • , Soo Hyeon Lee
    •  & Tae Gwan Park

  • Review Article |

    Stimuli-responsive polymers can be engineered, in both film and colloid forms, to respond to a variety of inputs, from temperature to pH. The inherent flexibility in their structure and responses result in materials that lend themselves to applications ranging from drug delivery to sensing. Recent advances and future challenges in this direction are reviewed.

    • Martien A. Cohen Stuart
    • , Wilhelm T. S. Huck
    •  & Sergiy Minko

  • Letter |

    Why does the bandgap in semiconducting carbon nanotubes depend on the way it is measured? It is now shown that the results obtained by scanning tunnelling spectroscopy are usually influenced by screening, which creates the discrepancy with optical measurements. The results highlight the importance of many-body effects in the electronic properties of carbon nanotubes.

    • H. Lin
    • , J. Lagoute
    •  & S. Rousset

  • Article |

    The ability to control the surface chemistry of silicon is important for microelectronic applications. Chemical species can now be stabilized on Si(111) surfaces using a partially alkoxylated surface as a nanopatterning template.

    • David J. Michalak
    • , Sandrine Rivillon Amy
    •  & Yves J. Chabal

  • Letter |

    Control of magnetization in ferromagnetic metals can be achieved through the spin torque of currents of spin-polarized electrons, usually injected externally. It is now shown that even without this spin-polarized injection, a current can induce strong spin torques through the Rashba effect. The efficiency of this process makes it a realistic candidate for room-temperature spintronic applications.

    • Ioan Mihai Miron
    • , Gilles Gaudin
    •  & Pietro Gambardella

  • Letter |

    Jamming transitions of disordered systems such as foams, gels and colloidal suspensions, describe the change from a liquid to a solid state. An investigation of the three-dimensional properties of jamming shows how, for example, unjamming occurs simultaneously in all directions even if it is induced in one direction only.

    • G. Ovarlez
    • , Q. Barral
    •  & P. Coussot

  • Article |

    Capacitive energy storage is technologically attractive because of its short charging times and its ability to deliver more power than batteries. The capacitive charge-storage properties of mesoporous films of MoO3 with iso-oriented grains now lead to pseudocapacitive materials that offer increased energy density while still maintaining high power density.

    • Torsten Brezesinski
    • , John Wang
    •  & Bruce Dunn

  • News & Views |

    The realization of electrical sources of surface plasmon polaritons using complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology is a significant step towards silicon-compatible nanoscale photonic devices.

    • Aaron Hryciw
    • , Young Chul Jun
    •  & Mark L. Brongersma

  • News & Views |

    Most crystalline materials expand when heated. Now, the packing arrangement of an organic dumbbell-shaped molecule is seen to bring about a large thermal contraction of its crystal lattice.

    • Andrew L. Goodwin

  • Editorial |

    Nobel prizes for applied research provide recognition for innovations with profound impact, fully in tune with the intentions of Alfred Nobel.

  • News & Views |

    Experiments have shown that the physical characteristics of the matrix surrounding a stem cell can affect its behaviour. This picture gets further complicated by studies of stem cells and their differentiated counterparts that show that the cells' own softness also has a clear role in how they respond to stress.

    • Andrew W. Holle
    •  & Adam J. Engler

  • News & Views |

    500 years after the first studies on friction, the concepts of superlubricity, wearless sliding and friction control are being realized in laboratories and have become predictable by adequate modelling. The challenge now is to bridge the gap between what is known about these processes on the microscopic and macroscopic scales.

    • Michael Urbakh
    •  & Ernst Meyer

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