Structural materials articles within Nature Materials

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  • News & Views |

    Nanoarchitected carbon composed of intricate tube-in-tube beams connected with nanostruts has been fabricated, achieving both ultralightweight and ultrahigh modulus.

    • Yujia Wang
    •  & Xiaoyan Li

  • News & Views |

    Centimetre-scale crack-free metal nanolattices are realized, enabling outstanding high tensile strength in low-density materials.

    • Andreas Stein
    •  & Nathan A. Mara

  • News & Views |

    The processes of metallic asperities moving across each other, which are decisive in most machinery, have been visualized at the atomic scale, revealing unexpected behaviour especially when under tensile stress.

    • Udo D. Schwarz

  • Article |

    Submicrometre-sized amorphous silicon samples show an unusually large tensile strength relative to the compressive strength, which is due to the reduced shear modulus and the activation energy barrier for shear transformations under compression.

    • Yuecun Wang
    • , Jun Ding
    •  & Zhiwei Shan

  • News & Views |

    Very low-density pulsed current is shown to sharply change the dislocation evolution pattern of Ti–Al alloy with 7 at.% Al, enhancing its strength and ductility.

    • Stefan Zaefferer

  • Letter |

    A percolation theory of alloy passivation is developed accounting for selective dissolution and the quantity of metal dissolved during the primary passivation process, which provides a quantitative way for designing corrosion-resistant alloy compositions.

    • Yusi Xie
    • , Dorota M. Artymowicz
    •  & Karl Sieradzki

  • Article |

    Transmission electron microscopy reveals the electroplastic effects in a Ti–Al alloy, which can be uncoupled from Joule heating effects. Electropulsing during deformation enhances wavy slip of dislocations, reconfiguring the dislocation pattern, and hence increases the ductility.

    • Shiteng Zhao
    • , Ruopeng Zhang
    •  & Andrew M. Minor

  • Article |

    In contrast with conventional views, ultra-large-scale atomistic simulations show that the staged character of strain hardening of metals originates from crystal rotation, whereas the dislocation behaviours remain the same across all the stages.

    • Luis A. Zepeda-Ruiz
    • , Alexander Stukowski
    •  & Vasily V. Bulatov

  • Article |

    Lithium metal is considered an ideal anode for high-energy rechargeable lithium batteries, but understanding its nucleation and growth at the nanoscale remains challenging. Using cryogenic transmission electron microscopy and simulations, a structural and morphological evolution scenario for Li deposits is proposed.

    • Xuefeng Wang
    • , Gorakh Pawar
    •  & Boryann Liaw

  • Comment |

    The restoration of fire-damaged historical monuments entails a wide range of scientific questions. Taking as a starting point the case of Notre-Dame de Paris, this Comment defines the materials science challenges of post-fire restoration, and also briefly outlines the issues of structural integrity, fire safety and preservation ethics.

    • Ylenia Praticò
    • , John Ochsendorf
    •  & Robert J. Flatt

  • Article |

    Radiation-induced segregation is widely observed in metals. Here it is discovered that radiation-induced segregation also occurs in a ceramic, with carbon atoms in silicon carbide segregating to the grain boundaries under irradiation.

    • Xing Wang
    • , Hongliang Zhang
    •  & Izabela Szlufarska

  • Article |

    The interstitial ordering in Fe–C alloys is shown to be stabilized by local anharmonicity in strain fields, which substantially reduces the critical C concentration for ordering. C segregation into extended defects predominates over ordering at low C concentrations but sharply decreases at high concentrations.

    • Xie Zhang
    • , Hongcai Wang
    •  & Jörg Neugebauer

  • News & Views |

    Finding a competitor for diamond as a good heat conductor remains challenging. Measurements on crystals of cubic boron nitride demonstrate a thermal conductivity of 1,600 W m−1 K−1 at room temperature, rivalling diamond.

    • Ashutosh Giri
    •  & Patrick E. Hopkins

  • Letter |

    Quantum-assisted de-trapping in tungsten leads to diffusion rates orders of magnitude higher than naive classical estimates suggest. This phenomenon may be generic to any crystalline material.

    • Kazuto Arakawa
    • , Mihai-Cosmin Marinica
    •  & Hirotaro Mori

  • Article |

    It is believed that the strengthening of metals by formation of nanoscale grains or coherent twin boundaries is limited to a maximum strength. Here, using experiment and theory, it is shown that the fabrication of nanocrystalline-nanotwinned Ag with trace Cu results in a hardness beyond this limit.

    • Xing Ke
    • , Jianchao Ye
    •  & Frederic Sansoz

  • News & Views |

    A crystal structure with one-dimensional order is identified in oxide ceramics, which is distinguished from the well-known categories of solid structures and potentially provides unexpected properties.

    • Eric A. Stach

  • Letter |

    An ordered structure that has only translational periodicity in one direction— unlike the known solid categories of crystal, quasicrystal and amorphous— is discovered in MgO and Nd2O3 ceramics.

    • Deqiang Yin
    • , Chunlin Chen
    •  & Yuichi Ikuhara

  • News & Views |

    An elastomer sheet with programmed inner channel architecture swiftly shapes into a desired three-dimensional geometry upon the application of pressure.

    • Efi Efrati

  • Letter |

    Elastomer sheets with programmable air channel organization swiftly shape into complex three-dimensional structures upon the application of pressure.

    • Emmanuel Siéfert
    • , Etienne Reyssat
    •  & Benoît Roman

  • News & Views |

    Although precipitates’ compositions are theoretically determined by thermodynamics, their formation kinetics can also lead to composition variations that allow further structural evolution, making the precipitation path more complex.

    • Emmanuel Clouet

  • Article |

    Ferroelectricity can be modified by domain wall strain fields that extend over nanometres. Here, with X-ray microscopy, strain fields over several micrometres are observed in BaTiO3, suggesting ferroelectricity is globally altered throughout the material.

    • Hugh Simons
    • , Astri Bjørnetun Haugen
    •  & Henning Friis Poulsen

  • News & Views |

    Advanced characterization and modelling techniques provide unique insights into oxidant transport processes in growing scales of high-temperature alloys and alloy design for improving their degradation resistance in harsh environments.

    • Brian Gleeson

  • Letter |

    In situ transmission electron microscopy observations reveal atomistic mechanism of water-vapour-enhanced oxidation of Ni–Cr alloys. Protons derived from water promote vacancy formation, migration and clustering.

    • Langli Luo
    • , Mao Su
    •  & Chongmin Wang

  • Article |

    TiO2 and other metal oxides were interfaced with molecular boron clusters to form a hybrid material. This modifies the electrochemical and photocatalytic properties, enabling fast electron transfer and dye degradation under red light.

    • Dahee Jung
    • , Liban M. A. Saleh
    •  & Alexander M. Spokoyny

  • News & Views |

    Additive manufacturing has been used to fabricate a common stainless steel, which imparts a unique microstructure to this material, making it stronger and more ductile than that produced with conventional methods.

    • Iain Todd

  • News & Views |

    In situ transmission electron microscopy resolves atomic structures and dislocation dynamics of surface segregation, providing insights that open a pathway to new advances in interface engineering.

    • Simon P. Ringer

  • Article |

    In situ transmission electron microscopy combined with theory modelling reveals that surface segregation in CuAu solid solution generates misfit dislocations, providing atomistic mechanisms of dislocation nucleation and dynamics at heterointerfaces.

    • Lianfeng Zou
    • , Chaoming Yang
    •  & Guangwen Zhou

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