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Phase- and composition-controlled synthesis Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-06-23 Weiguang Yang, Jieun Yang, Hyeon Suk Shin
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Composition and phase engineering of metal chalcogenides and phosphorous chalcogenides Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-06-23 Jiadong Zhou, Chao Zhu, Yao Zhou, Jichen Dong, Peiling Li, Zhaowei Zhang, Zhen Wang, Yung-Chang Lin, Jia Shi, Runwu Zhang, Yanzhen Zheng, Huimei Yu, Bijun Tang, Fucai Liu, Lin Wang, Liwei Liu, Gui-Bin Liu, Weida Hu, Yanfeng Gao, Haitao Yang, Weibo Gao, Li Lu, Yeliang Wang, Kazu Suenaga, Guangtong Liu, Feng Ding, Yugui Yao, Zheng Liu
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Capturing dynamic ligand-to-metal charge transfer with a long-lived cationic intermediate for anionic redox Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-06-20 Biao Li, Khagesh Kumar, Indrani Roy, Anatolii V. Morozov, Olga V. Emelyanova, Leiting Zhang, Tuncay Koç, Stéphanie Belin, Jordi Cabana, Rémi Dedryvère, Artem M. Abakumov, Jean-Marie Tarascon
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Imaging gate-tunable Tomonaga–Luttinger liquids in 1H-MoSe2 mirror twin boundaries Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-06-16 Tiancong Zhu, Wei Ruan, Yan-Qi Wang, Hsin-Zon Tsai, Shuopei Wang, Canxun Zhang, Tianye Wang, Franklin Liou, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Jeffrey B. Neaton, Alexander Weber-Bargioni, Alex Zettl, Z. Q. Qiu, Guangyu Zhang, Feng Wang, Joel E. Moore, Michael F. Crommie
One-dimensional electron systems exhibit fundamentally different properties than higher-dimensional systems. For example, electron–electron interactions in one-dimensional electron systems have been predicted to induce Tomonaga–Luttinger liquid behaviour. Naturally occurring grain boundaries in single-layer transition metal dichalcogenides exhibit one-dimensional conducting channels that have been
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Deterministic switching of a perpendicularly polarized magnet using unconventional spin–orbit torques in WTe2 Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-06-16 I-Hsuan Kao, Ryan Muzzio, Hantao Zhang, Menglin Zhu, Jacob Gobbo, Sean Yuan, Daniel Weber, Rahul Rao, Jiahan Li, James H. Edgar, Joshua E. Goldberger, Jiaqiang Yan, David G. Mandrus, Jinwoo Hwang, Ran Cheng, Jyoti Katoch, Simranjeet Singh
Spin–orbit torque (SOT)-driven deterministic control of the magnetic state of a ferromagnet with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy is key to next-generation spintronic applications including non-volatile, ultrafast and energy-efficient data-storage devices. However, field-free deterministic switching of perpendicular magnetization remains a challenge because it requires an out-of-plane antidamping
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Unconventional excitonic states with phonon sidebands in layered silicon diphosphide Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-06-16 Ling Zhou, Junwei Huang, Lukas Windgaetter, Chin Shen Ong, Xiaoxu Zhao, Caorong Zhang, Ming Tang, Zeya Li, Caiyu Qiu, Simone Latini, Yangfan Lu, Di Wu, Huiyang Gou, Andrew T. S. Wee, Hideo Hosono, Steven G. Louie, Peizhe Tang, Angel Rubio, Hongtao Yuan
Complex correlated states emerging from many-body interactions between quasiparticles (electrons, excitons and phonons) are at the core of condensed matter physics and material science. In low-dimensional materials, quantum confinement affects the electronic, and subsequently, optical properties for these correlated states. Here, by combining photoluminescence, optical reflection measurements and ab
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Programmable gear-based mechanical metamaterials Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-06-09 Xin Fang, Jihong Wen, Li Cheng, Dianlong Yu, Hongjia Zhang, Peter Gumbsch
Elastic properties of classical bulk materials can hardly be changed or adjusted in operando, while such tunable elasticity is highly desired for robots and smart machinery. Although possible in reconfigurable metamaterials, continuous tunability in existing designs is plagued by issues such as structural instability, weak robustness, plastic failure and slow response. Here we report a metamaterial
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Halide perovskites enable polaritonic XY spin Hamiltonian at room temperature Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-06-09 Renjie Tao, Kai Peng, Louis Haeberlé, Quanwei Li, Dafei Jin, Graham R. Fleming, Stéphane Kéna-Cohen, Xiang Zhang, Wei Bao
Exciton polaritons, the part-light and part-matter quasiparticles in semiconductor optical cavities, are promising for exploring Bose–Einstein condensation, non-equilibrium many-body physics and analogue simulation at elevated temperatures. However, a room-temperature polaritonic platform on par with the GaAs quantum wells grown by molecular beam epitaxy at low temperatures remains elusive. The operation
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High-entropy enhanced capacitive energy storage Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-06-06 Bingbing Yang, Yang Zhang, Hao Pan, Wenlong Si, Qinghua Zhang, Zhonghui Shen, Yong Yu, Shun Lan, Fanqi Meng, Yiqian Liu, Houbing Huang, Jiaqing He, Lin Gu, Shujun Zhang, Long-Qing Chen, Jing Zhu, Ce-Wen Nan, Yuan-Hua Lin
Electrostatic dielectric capacitors are essential components in advanced electronic and electrical power systems due to their ultrafast charging/discharging speed and high power density. A major challenge, however, is how to improve their energy densities to effectuate the next-generation applications that demand miniaturization and integration. Here, we report a high-entropy stabilized Bi2Ti2O7-based
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Tapered fibertrodes for optoelectrical neural interfacing in small brain volumes with reduced artefacts Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-06-06 Barbara Spagnolo, Antonio Balena, Rui T. Peixoto, Marco Pisanello, Leonardo Sileo, Marco Bianco, Alessandro Rizzo, Filippo Pisano, Antonio Qualtieri, Dario Domenico Lofrumento, Francesco De Nuccio, John A. Assad, Bernardo L. Sabatini, Massimo De Vittorio, Ferruccio Pisanello
Deciphering the neural patterns underlying brain functions is essential to understanding how neurons are organized into networks. This deciphering has been greatly facilitated by optogenetics and its combination with optoelectronic devices to control neural activity with millisecond temporal resolution and cell type specificity. However, targeting small brain volumes causes photoelectric artefacts
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Direct correlation between void formation and lithium dendrite growth in solid-state electrolytes with interlayers Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-06-02 Vikalp Raj, Victor Venturi, Varun R. Kankanallu, Bibhatsu Kuiri, Venkatasubramanian Viswanathan, Naga Phani B. Aetukuri
Solid-state Li-ion batteries with lithium anodes offer higher energy densities and are safer than conventional liquid electrolyte-based Li-ion batteries. However, the growth of lithium dendrites across the solid-state electrolyte layer leads to the premature shorting of cells and limits their practical viability. Here, using solid-state Li half-cells with metallic interlayers between a garnet-based
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Reassembled nanoprecipitates resisting radiation Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-31 Yanwen Zhang
Outstanding resistance to destructive radiation damage in structural alloys is realized by ultra-high-density reversible nanoprecipitate inclusions, and the improvement is attributed to the reordering process of low-misfit superlattices in highly supersaturated matrices.
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Superconducting antimonates Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-31 Seo Hyoung Chang
Using high-pressure synthesis, perovskite antimonates have been realized with enhanced charge density wave gap and superconducting transition temperatures up to 15 K.
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Bi-state switch in moiré stacking Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-31 Augusto Ghiotto
Twisted monolayer–multilayer graphene superlattices present bi-stable reconstruction states, with reversible switch in-between and long-distance propagation triggered by local mechanical perturbation. This provides additional degrees of freedom for moiré engineering.
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Materials at the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-31
Materials scientists have played a key role in the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic from the development of vaccines and diagnostic tools to the rapid prototyping of ventilators.
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More nodes bring more Floquet modes Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-31 Alexander B. Khanikaev
A temporal modulation protocol enriches topological Floquet physics by enabling the realization of bimorphic Floquet systems where Chern and anomalous Floquet phases coexist in a single platform of laser-written waveguides.
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Superior radiation tolerance via reversible disordering–ordering transition of coherent superlattices Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-30 Jinlong Du, Suihe Jiang, Peipei Cao, Chuan Xu, Yuan Wu, Huaqiang Chen, Engang Fu, Zhaoping Lu
Materials capable of sustaining high radiation doses at a high temperature are required for next-generation fission and future fusion energy. To date, however, even the most promising structural materials cannot withstand the demanded radiation environment due to irreversible radiation-driven microstructure degradation. Here we report a counterintuitive strategy to achieve exceptionally high radiation
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Spontaneous formation of metastable orientation with well-organized permanent dipole moment in organic glassy films Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-30 Masaki Tanaka, Morgan Auffray, Hajime Nakanotani, Chihaya Adachi
The performance of organic optoelectronic and energy-harvesting devices is largely determined by the molecular orientation and resultant permanent dipole moment, yet this property is difficult to control during film preparation. Here, we demonstrate the active control of dipole direction—that is, vector direction and magnitude—in organic glassy films by physical vapour deposition. An organic glassy
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Self-generated gradients steer collective migration on viscoelastic collagen networks Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-30 Andrew G. Clark, Ananyo Maitra, Cécile Jacques, Martin Bergert, Carlos Pérez-González, Anthony Simon, Luc Lederer, Alba Diz-Muñoz, Xavier Trepat, Raphaël Voituriez, Danijela Matic Vignjevic
Growing evidence suggests that the physical properties of the cellular microenvironment influence cell migration. However, it is not currently understood how active physical remodelling by cells affects migration dynamics. Here we report that cell clusters seeded on deformable collagen-I networks display persistent collective migration despite not showing any apparent intrinsic polarity. Clusters generate
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Wireless neuromodulation with porous silicon Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-26 Silvestro Micera, Eugenio Redolfi Riva
Wireless optoelectronic devices are fabricated by controlling the porosity of p-type silicon, enabling in vivo efficient, non-genetic optoelectronic modulation of peripheral nerve activity.
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Bringing some bulk into ferroelectric devices Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-26 Morgan Trassin, Vincent Garcia
Sub-100-mV switching at the nanosecond timescale is achieved in ferroelectric devices by approaching bulk-like perfection in prototypical BaTiO3 thin films.
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Long-term solar water and CO2 splitting with photoelectrochemical BiOI–BiVO4 tandems Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-26 Virgil Andrei, Robert A. Jagt, Motiar Rahaman, Leonardo Lari, Vlado K. Lazarov, Judith L. MacManus-Driscoll, Robert L. Z. Hoye, Erwin Reisner
Photoelectrochemical (PEC) devices have been developed for direct solar fuel production but the limited stability of submerged light absorbers can hamper their commercial prospects.1,2 Here, we demonstrate photocathodes with an operational H2 evolution activity over weeks, by integrating a BiOI light absorber into a robust, oxide-based architecture with a graphite paste conductive encapsulant. In this
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3D printed protein-based robotic structures actuated by molecular motor assemblies Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-26 Haiyang Jia, Johannes Flommersfeld, Michael Heymann, Sven K. Vogel, Henri G. Franquelim, David B. Brückner, Hiromune Eto, Chase P. Broedersz, Petra Schwille
Upscaling motor protein activity to perform work in man-made devices has long been an ambitious goal in bionanotechnology. The use of hierarchical motor assemblies, as realized in sarcomeres, has so far been complicated by the challenges of arranging sufficiently high numbers of motor proteins with nanoscopic precision. Here, we describe an alternative approach based on actomyosin cortex-like force
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Porosity-based heterojunctions enable leadless optoelectronic modulation of tissues Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-26 Aleksander Prominski, Jiuyun Shi, Pengju Li, Jiping Yue, Yiliang Lin, Jihun Park, Bozhi Tian, Menahem Y. Rotenberg
Homo- and heterojunctions play essential roles in semiconductor-based devices such as field-effect transistors, solar cells, photodetectors and light-emitting diodes. Semiconductor junctions have been recently used to optically trigger biological modulation via photovoltaic or photoelectrochemical mechanisms. The creation of heterojunctions typically involves materials with different doping or composition
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Solid–liquid–gas reaction accelerated by gas molecule tunnelling-like effect Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-26 Wen Wang, Tao Xu, Jige Chen, Junyi Shangguan, Hui Dong, Huishu Ma, Qiubo Zhang, Junwei Yang, Tingting Bai, Zhirui Guo, Haiping Fang, Haimei Zheng, Litao Sun
Solid–liquid–gas reactions are ubiquitous and are encountered in both nature and industrial processes1,2,3,4. A comprehensive description of gas transport in liquid and following reactions at the solid–liquid–gas interface, which is substantial in regard to achieving enhanced triple-phase reactions, remains unavailable. Here, we report a real-time observation of the accelerated etching of gold nanorods
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Enabling ultra-low-voltage switching in BaTiO3 Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-26 Y. Jiang, E. Parsonnet, A. Qualls, W. Zhao, S. Susarla, D. Pesquera, A. Dasgupta, M. Acharya, H. Zhang, T. Gosavi, C.-C. Lin, D. E. Nikonov, H. Li, I. A. Young, R. Ramesh, L. W. Martin
Single crystals of BaTiO3 exhibit small switching fields and energies, but thin-film performance is considerably worse, thus precluding their use in next-generation devices. Here, we demonstrate high-quality BaTiO3 thin films with nearly bulk-like properties. Thickness scaling provides access to the coercive voltages (<100 mV) and fields (<10 kV cm−1) required for future applications and results in
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Lipid nanodiscs give cancer a STING Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-23 Ningqiang Gong, Michael J. Mitchell
Lipid nanodiscs carrying a potent STING agonist penetrate deep into solid tumours compared with gold-standard liposomes and enable long-term antitumour immunotherapy.
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A large library for tiny catalysts Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-23 Ziyi Chen, David Morris, Peng Zhang
Atomically dispersed catalysts show great promise, but their design is challenging. A library of catalysts spanning 37 elements was created to uncover unified principles for catalyst design.
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A single-atom library for guided monometallic and concentration-complex multimetallic designs Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-23 Lili Han, Hao Cheng, Wei Liu, Haoqiang Li, Pengfei Ou, Ruoqian Lin, Hsiao-Tsu Wang, Chih-Wen Pao, Ashley R. Head, Chia-Hsin Wang, Xiao Tong, Cheng-Jun Sun, Way-Faung Pong, Jun Luo, Jin-Cheng Zheng, Huolin L. Xin
Atomically dispersed single-atom catalysts have the potential to bridge heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis. Dozens of single-atom catalysts have been developed, and they exhibit notable catalytic activity and selectivity that are not achievable on metal surfaces. Although promising, there is limited knowledge about the boundaries for the monometallic single-atom phase space, not to mention multimetallic
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STING agonist delivery by tumour-penetrating PEG-lipid nanodiscs primes robust anticancer immunity Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-23 Eric L. Dane, Alexis Belessiotis-Richards, Coralie Backlund, Jianing Wang, Kousuke Hidaka, Lauren E. Milling, Sachin Bhagchandani, Mariane B. Melo, Shengwei Wu, Na Li, Nathan Donahue, Kaiyuan Ni, Leyuan Ma, Masanori Okaniwa, Molly M. Stevens, Alfredo Alexander-Katz, Darrell J. Irvine
Activation of the innate immune STimulator of INterferon Genes (STING) pathway potentiates antitumour immunity, but systemic delivery of STING agonists to tumours is challenging. We conjugated STING-activating cyclic dinucleotides (CDNs) to PEGylated lipids (CDN-PEG-lipids; PEG, polyethylene glycol) via a cleavable linker and incorporated them into lipid nanodiscs (LNDs), which are discoid nanoparticles
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Nanotwinning-assisted dynamic recrystallization at high strains and strain rates Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-19 Ahmed A. Tiamiyu, Edward L. Pang, Xi Chen, James M. LeBeau, Keith A. Nelson, Christopher A. Schuh
Grain refinement is a widely sought-after feature of many metal production processes and frequently involves a process of recrystallization. Some processing methods use very high strain rates and high strains to refine the grain structure into the nanocrystalline regime. However, grain refinement processes are not clear in these extreme conditions, which are hard to study systematically. Here, we access
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The visual appearances of disordered optical metasurfaces Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-19 Kevin Vynck, Romain Pacanowski, Adrian Agreda, Arthur Dufay, Xavier Granier, Philippe Lalanne
Nanostructured materials have recently emerged as a promising approach for material appearance design. Research has mainly focused on creating structural colours by wave interference, leaving aside other important aspects that constitute the visual appearance of an object, such as the respective weight of specular and diffuse reflectances, object macroscopic shape, illumination and viewing conditions
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Asynchronous current-induced switching of rare-earth and transition-metal sublattices in ferrimagnetic alloys Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-12 Giacomo Sala, Charles-Henri Lambert, Simone Finizio, Victor Raposo, Viola Krizakova, Gunasheel Krishnaswamy, Markus Weigand, Jörg Raabe, Marta D. Rossell, Eduardo Martinez, Pietro Gambardella
Ferrimagnetic alloys are model systems for understanding the ultrafast magnetization switching in materials with antiferromagnetically coupled sublattices. Here we investigate the dynamics of the rare-earth and transition-metal sublattices in ferrimagnetic GdFeCo and TbCo dots excited by spin–orbit torques with combined temporal, spatial and elemental resolution. We observe distinct switching regimes
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Coupling between magnetic order and charge transport in a two-dimensional magnetic semiconductor Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-05 Evan J. Telford, Avalon H. Dismukes, Raymond L. Dudley, Ren A. Wiscons, Kihong Lee, Daniel G. Chica, Michael E. Ziebel, Myung-Geun Han, Jessica Yu, Sara Shabani, Allen Scheie, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Di Xiao, Yimei Zhu, Abhay N. Pasupathy, Colin Nuckolls, Xiaoyang Zhu, Cory R. Dean, Xavier Roy
Semiconductors, featuring tunable electrical transport, and magnets, featuring tunable spin configurations, form the basis of many information technologies. A long-standing challenge has been to realize materials that integrate and connect these two distinct properties. Two-dimensional (2D) materials offer a platform to realize this concept, but known 2D magnetic semiconductors are electrically insulating
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Single-junction organic solar cells with over 19% efficiency enabled by a refined double-fibril network morphology Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-05 Lei Zhu, Ming Zhang, Jinqiu Xu, Chao Li, Jun Yan, Guanqing Zhou, Wenkai Zhong, Tianyu Hao, Jiali Song, Xiaonan Xue, Zichun Zhou, Rui Zeng, Haiming Zhu, Chun-Chao Chen, Roderick C. I. MacKenzie, Yecheng Zou, Jenny Nelson, Yongming Zhang, Yanming Sun, Feng Liu
In organic photovoltaics, morphological control of donor and acceptor domains on the nanoscale is the key for enabling efficient exciton diffusion and dissociation, carrier transport and suppression of recombination losses. To realize this, here, we demonstrated a double-fibril network based on a ternary donor–acceptor morphology with multi-length scales constructed by combining ancillary conjugated
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Handy nanoquakes Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-03 Hubert J. Krenner, Christoph Westerhausen
Electrically programmable Fourier-synthesized acoustic tweezers enable facile manipulation of micrometre-sized objects, colloids and living cells in a lab-on-chip device that combines high throughput with minimal invasive yet highly tunable force fields.
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Busting through quantum dot barriers Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-03 Naomi S. Ginsberg, William A. Tisdale
Early time transient absorption microscopy in quantum dot solids reveals anomalous exciton transport with multiple different temporal regimes within hundreds of femtoseconds after photoexcitation.
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All together now Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-03
A return to in-person and hybrid conferences is more than welcome and sure to inspire.
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Chirality tweaks spins in tellurium Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-03 See-Hun Yang
Spins become polarized along their momenta when travelling through chiral tellurium nanowires. The signs of chirality and current determine the orientations of polarized spins while the spin density can be tuned by electrical gating, current and external magnetic field.
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Two become one Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-03 Michael Claeys
Double-shelled hollow spheres comprising of different catalytic materials are shown to enhance the efficiency of catalytic processes for the selective conversion of hydrogen and carbon monoxide to gasoline.
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Stretching out transistors Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-02 Fabio Cicoira
Bioelectronics demand stretchable devices with steady performance under deformation. By combining an amphiphilic organic semiconducting polymer with tailored film processing, highly stretchable organic electrochemical transistors are demonstrated.
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Highly stretchable organic electrochemical transistors with strain-resistant performance Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-02 Jianhua Chen, Wei Huang, Ding Zheng, Zhaoqian Xie, Xinming Zhuang, Dan Zhao, Yao Chen, Ning Su, Hongming Chen, Robert M. Pankow, Zhan Gao, Junsheng Yu, Xugang Guo, Yuhua Cheng, Joseph Strzalka, Xinge Yu, Tobin J. Marks, Antonio Facchetti
Realizing fully stretchable electronic materials is central to advancing new types of mechanically agile and skin-integrable optoelectronic device technologies. Here we demonstrate a materials design concept combining an organic semiconductor film with a honeycomb porous structure with biaxially prestretched platform that enables high-performance organic electrochemical transistors with a charge transport
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Electrochemically induced amorphous-to-rock-salt phase transformation in niobium oxide electrode for Li-ion batteries Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-05-02 Pete Barnes, Yunxing Zuo, Kiev Dixon, Dewen Hou, Sungsik Lee, Zhiyuan Ma, Justin G. Connell, Hua Zhou, Changjian Deng, Kassiopeia Smith, Eric Gabriel, Yuzi Liu, Olivia O. Maryon, Paul H. Davis, Haoyu Zhu, Yingge Du, Ji Qi, Zhuoying Zhu, Chi Chen, Zihua Zhu, Yadong Zhou, Paul J. Simmonds, Ariel E. Briggs, Darin Schwartz, Shyue Ping Ong, Hui Xiong
Intercalation-type metal oxides are promising negative electrode materials for safe rechargeable lithium-ion batteries due to the reduced risk of Li plating at low voltages. Nevertheless, their lower energy and power density along with cycling instability remain bottlenecks for their implementation, especially for fast-charging applications. Here, we report a nanostructured rock-salt Nb2O5 electrode
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Trace removal of benzene vapour using double-walled metal–dipyrazolate frameworks Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-04-28 Tao He, Xiang-Jing Kong, Zhen-Xing Bian, Yong-Zheng Zhang, Guang-Rui Si, Lin-Hua Xie, Xue-Qian Wu, Hongliang Huang, Ze Chang, Xian-He Bu, Michael J. Zaworotko, Zuo-Ren Nie, Jian-Rong Li
In principle, porous physisorbents are attractive candidates for the removal of volatile organic compounds such as benzene by virtue of their low energy for the capture and release of this pollutant. Unfortunately, many physisorbents exhibit weak sorbate–sorbent interactions, resulting in poor selectivity and low uptake when volatile organic compounds are present at trace concentrations. Herein, we
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Bimorphic Floquet topological insulators Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-04-28 Georgios G. Pyrialakos, Julius Beck, Matthias Heinrich, Lukas J. Maczewsky, Nikolaos V. Kantartzis, Mercedeh Khajavikhan, Alexander Szameit, Demetrios N. Christodoulides
Topological theories have established a unique set of rules that govern the transport properties in a wide variety of wave-mechanical settings. In a marked departure from the established approaches that induce Floquet topological phases by specifically tailored discrete coupling protocols or helical lattice motions, we introduce a class of bimorphic Floquet topological insulators that leverage connective
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Anomalous optical excitations from arrays of whirlpooled lattice distortions in moiré superlattices Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-04-28 Jungcheol Kim, Eunjung Ko, Jaeyeon Jo, Miyoung Kim, Hyobin Yoo, Young-Woo Son, Hyeonsik Cheong
Moiré superlattices formed by stacking two-dimensional crystals have reinvigorated the pursuit for emergent functionalities of engineered superlattices. Unique optical characteristics can be realized from the interplay between the electronic excitations and the atomic rearrangements owing to their intrinsic softness. Although large-scale reconstructions have been identified at small twist angles, they
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Paul McMillan (1956–2022) Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-04-25 Andrea Sella, Alexandra Navrotsky
Pioneer of polyamorphism and enthusiast for the solid state.
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Domino-like stacking order switching in twisted monolayer–multilayer graphene Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-04-21 Shuai Zhang, Qiang Xu, Yuan Hou, Aisheng Song, Yuan Ma, Lei Gao, Mengzhen Zhu, Tianbao Ma, Luqi Liu, Xi-Qiao Feng, Qunyang Li
Atomic reconstruction has been widely observed in two-dimensional van der Waals structures with small twist angles1,2,3,4,5,6,7. This unusual behaviour leads to many novel phenomena, including strong electronic correlation, spontaneous ferromagnetism and topologically protected states1,5,8,9,10,11,12,13,14. Nevertheless, atomic reconstruction typically occurs spontaneously, exhibiting only one single
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Self-assembly across scales Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-04-14 Kyle J. M. Bishop
Coupling between nanoscale self-assembly and capillary pattern formation leads to ordered thin films with multiscale structure spanning six orders of magnitude.
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Renal clearable polyfluorophore nanosensors for early diagnosis of cancer and allograft rejection Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-04-14 Jiaguo Huang, Xiaona Chen, Yuyan Jiang, Chi Zhang, Shasha He, Hangxiang Wang, Kanyi Pu
Optical nanoparticles are promising diagnostic tools; however, their shallow optical imaging depth and slow clearance from the body have impeded their use for in vivo disease detection. To address these limitations, we develop activatable polyfluorophore nanosensors with biomarker-triggered nanoparticle-to-molecule pharmacokinetic conversion and near-infrared fluorogenic turn-on response. Activatable
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Enhanced nanofluidic transport in activated carbon nanoconduits Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-04-14 Theo Emmerich, Kalangi S. Vasu, Antoine Niguès, Ashok Keerthi, Boya Radha, Alessandro Siria, Lydéric Bocquet
Carbon has emerged as a unique material in nanofluidics, with reports of fast water transport, molecular ion separation and efficient osmotic energy conversion. Many of these phenomena still await proper rationalization due to the lack of fundamental understanding of nanoscale ionic transport, which can only be achieved in controlled environments. Here we develop the fabrication of ‘activated’ two-dimensional
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Multiscale hierarchical structures from a nanocluster mesophase Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-04-14 Haixiang Han, Shantanu Kallakuri, Yuan Yao, Curtis B. Williamson, Douglas R. Nevers, Benjamin H. Savitzky, Rachael S. Skye, Mengyu Xu, Oleksandr Voznyy, Julia Dshemuchadse, Lena F. Kourkoutis, Steven J. Weinstein, Tobias Hanrath, Richard D. Robinson
Spontaneous hierarchical self-organization of nanometre-scale subunits into higher-level complex structures is ubiquitous in nature. The creation of synthetic nanomaterials that mimic the self-organization of complex superstructures commonly seen in biomolecules has proved challenging due to the lack of biomolecule-like building blocks that feature versatile, programmable interactions to render structural
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Rydberg exciton–polaritons in a Cu2O microcavity Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-04-14 Konstantinos Orfanakis, Sai Kiran Rajendran, Valentin Walther, Thomas Volz, Thomas Pohl, Hamid Ohadi
Giant Rydberg excitons with principal quantum numbers as high as n = 25 have been observed in cuprous oxide (Cu2O), a semiconductor in which the exciton diameter can become as large as ∼1 μm. The giant dimension of these excitons results in excitonic interaction enhancements of orders of magnitude. Rydberg exciton–polaritons, formed by the strong coupling of Rydberg excitons to cavity photons, are
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An efficient nickel hydrogen oxidation catalyst for hydroxide exchange membrane fuel cells Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-04-04 Weiyan Ni, Teng Wang, Florent Héroguel, Anna Krammer, Seunghwa Lee, Liang Yao, Andreas Schüler, Jeremy S. Luterbacher, Yushan Yan, Xile Hu
The hydroxide exchange membrane fuel cell (HEMFC) is a promising energy conversion technology but is limited by the need for platinum group metal (PGM) electrocatalysts, especially for the hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR). Here we report a Ni-based HOR catalyst that exhibits an electrochemical surface area-normalized exchange current density of 70 μA cm–2, the highest among PGM-free catalysts. The
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Moving beyond passive separations Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-03-31 Jeffrey R. McCutcheon, Mayur Ostwal, Mi Zhang
A composite membrane that contains porous organic cages is shown to be dynamic, with pore aperture diameter controlled by solvent allowing for graded molecular sieving.
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Uncovering the flow of metallic glass Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-03-31 Marios D. Demetriou
Plastic yielding of metallic glasses is mediated by strain softening, which promotes localized failure and impairs engineering predictability. Unravelling the mechanisms associated with this plastic flow behaviour lays the groundwork for reliable engineering design of this elusive material.
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Materials come alive Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-03-31
The dissemination of synthetic biology into materials science is creating an evolving class of functional, engineered living materials that can grow, sense and adapt similar to biological organisms.
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Living building blocks Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-03-31 Kwok Soon Wun, In Young Hwang, Matthew Wook Chang
A prototypical biocomposite block comprising a blend of bacteria, fungi and feedstock can be assembled into human-sized, living structures with self-healing and environmental sensing capabilities.
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Multipole polaron roams the devil’s staircase Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-03-31 Jian-Xin Zhu
Mobile electrons dressed with the crystal electric field of localized f orbitals form a new type of quasiparticle in a rare-earth material with a devil’s staircase magnetic structure.
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2D materials shrink superconducting qubits Nat. Mater. (IF 43.841) Pub Date : 2022-03-31 Christian Schönenberger
The exceptional quality of hexagonal boron nitride crystals that can be cleaved into few layers provides ultrathin dielectrics, thereby opening a route to ultrasmall capacitors with large capacitances. With such capacitors, the superconducting transmon qubit is scaled down by orders of magnitude.