Materials science articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article |

    It is unclear whether the Fermi surface in the normal state of underdoped cuprates is ambipolar or solely nodal. Here, measuring the second harmonic oscillations in underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+xreveals the origin as an oscillatory chemical potential, based on which a Fermi surface consisting of a nodal pocket is identified.

    • Suchitra E. Sebastian
    • , N. Harrison
    •  & G.G. Lonzarich

  • Article |

    Hydrogels have a variety of applications including tissue engineering and controlled drug delivery. Here, liquid-crystal hydrogels are developed which transform into a fluid solution upon cooling; cells can be encapsulated in the gel at room temperature, then released at physiological temperatures.

    • Zhegang Huang
    • , Hyojin Lee
    •  & Myongsoo Lee

  • Article |

    Property coupling by heteroepitaxy is severely limited in material combinations with highly dissimilar bonding. This report presents a chemical boundary condition methodology to actively engineer two-dimensional film growth in such systems that otherwise collapse into island formation and rough morphologies.

    • Elizabeth A. Paisley
    • , Mark. D. Losego
    •  & Jon-Paul Maria

  • Article
    | Open Access

    At extreme temperature and pressure, materials can form new dense phases with unusual physical properties. Here, laser-induced microexplosions are used to produce a superdense, stable, body-centred-cubic form of aluminium, which was previously predicted to exist at pressures above 380GPa.

    • Arturas Vailionis
    • , Eugene G. Gamaly
    •  & Saulius Juodkazis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High-power mechanical energy harvesting could be an alternative to batteries, but efficient energy conversion technology has been missing. Here, a novel mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion method is described that is based on reverse electrowetting and is uniquely suited for high-power energy harvesting.

    • Tom Krupenkin
    •  & J. Ashley Taylor

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An electron pocket exists in the Fermi-surface of the high temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3Oy, but its origin is unknown. Here, YBa2Cu3Oy and La1.8−xEu0.2SrxCuO4 are both shown to exhibit Fermi-surface reconstruction, and in the latter, this is due to stripe order, suggesting that the same mechanism exists in YBa2Cu3Oy.

    • F. Laliberté
    • , J. Chang
    •  & Louis Taillefer

  • Article |

    Composites of carbon nanotubes and superconductors provide technologically important new, or improved, functionalities. Here, with a chemical solution approach, well-aligned carbon nanotube forests embedded in a superconducting NbC matrix are shown to effectively enhance the superconducting properties of NbC.

    • G.F. Zou
    • , H.M. Luo
    •  & Q.X. Jia

  • Article |

    The development of practical photonic quantum technologies will be aided by the spatial control of entangled photons. Lenget al. achieve on-chip spatial control of entangled photons by using domain engineering, rather than by using external optical elements.

    • H.Y. Leng
    • , X.Q. Yu
    •  & S.N. Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Being able to determine the wetting properties of individual nanoparticles would aid the preparation of particles with controlled surface properties. Isaet al. develop an in situ freeze-fracture shadow-casting method and use this to determine structural and thermodynamic properties of various 10 nm particles at fluid interfaces.

    • Lucio Isa
    • , Falk Lucas
    •  & Erik Reimhult

  • Article |

    Ferromagnetic systems produced by the transition metal doping of semiconductors may be used as components of spintronic devices. Here, a new ferromagnet, Li1+y(Zn1-xMnx)As, is prepared in bulk quantities and shown to have a critical temperature approaching 50 K.

    • Z. Deng
    • , C.Q. Jin
    •  & Y.J. Uemura

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnesium is an ideal rechargeable battery anode material, but coupling it with a low-cost sulphur cathode, requires a non-nucleophilic electrolyte. Kimet al. prepare a non-nucleophilic electrolyte from hexamethyldisilazide magnesium chloride and aluminium trichloride, and show its compatibility with a sulphur cathode.

    • Hee Soo Kim
    • , Timothy S. Arthur
    •  & John Muldoon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High critical temperature superconductors could be used to produce ideal electric power lines, but the misalignment of crystalline grain boundaries reduces current density. Here, pnictide superconductors are found to be more tolerant to misaligned grain boundaries than cuprates.

    • Takayoshi Katase
    • , Yoshihiro Ishimaru
    •  & Hideo Hosono

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Flux-closure patterns are rarely observed in ferroelectric materials and almost exclusively form at the nanoscale. McQuaidet al. report mesoscopic dipole closure patterns formed in free-standing single-crystal lamellae of BaTiO3, thought to result from an unusual set of experimental conditions.

    • R.G.P. McQuaid
    • , L.J. McGilly
    •  & J.M. Gregg

  • Article |

    Brillouin interactions between sound and light can excite mechanical resonances in photonic microsystems, with potential for sensing and frequency reference applications. The authors demonstrate experimental excitation of mechanical resonances ranging from 49 to 1,400 MHz using forward Brillouin scattering.

    • Gaurav Bahl
    • , John Zehnpfennig
    •  & Tal Carmon

  • Article |

    Single-molecule magnets could be useful for the development of spintronic devices. Here single-molecule magnets are encapsulated in carbon nanotubes without affecting the properties of the guest molecules, which may be useful in the development of spintronic or high-density magnetic storage devices.

    • Maria del Carmen Giménez-López
    • , Fabrizio Moro
    •  & Andrei N. Khlobystov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In some iron-based materials, unconventional superconductivity can emerge near a quantum phase transition where long-range magnetic order vanishes. Giovannettiet al.show that the magnetic quantum phase transition in an iron pnictide superconductor is very close to the quantum tricritical point.

    • Gianluca Giovannetti
    • , Carmine Ortix
    •  & José Lorenzana

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Interacting electrons in one dimension are predicted to have independent spin and charge excitations. Wakehamet al. show evidence of this behaviour in a bulk conductor by measuring a ratio of thermal to electrical conductivity orders of magnitude larger than in conventional three-dimensional metals.

    • Nicholas Wakeham
    • , Alimamy F. Bangura
    •  & Nigel E. Hussey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The fractional quantum Hall effect occurs when electrons move in Landau levels. In this study, using a theoretical flat-band lattice model, the fractional quantum Hall effect is observed in the presence of repulsive interactions when the band is one third full and in the absence of Landau levels.

    • D.N. Sheng
    • , Zheng-Cheng Gu
    •  & L. Sheng

  • Article |

    Covalent reactions on carbon nanotube surfaces typically occur at random positions on the hexagonal lattice. Denget al. show that Billups–Birch reductive alkylation takes place at, and propagates from, sp3defect sites, leading to confinement of the reaction fronts in the tubular direction.

    • Shunliu Deng
    • , Yin Zhang
    •  & YuHuang Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Two-qubit operation is an essential part of quantum computation, but implementation has been difficult. Gotoet al.introduce optically controllable internuclear coupling in semiconductors providing a simple way of switching inter-qubit couplings in semiconductor-based quantum computers.

    • Atsushi Goto
    • , Shinobu Ohki
    •  & Tadashi Shimizu

  • Article |

    Interactions between charge, orbital and lattice degrees of freedom in correlated electron systems have resulted in predictions of new electronic phases of matter. Carlson and Dahmen propose two protocols for detecting disordered electron nematics in condensed matter systems using non-equilibrium methods.

    • E.W. Carlson
    •  & K.A. Dahmen

  • Article |

    The unoccupied electronic levels of graphene are modified by corrugation, doping and presence of impurities. Here, the authors map discrete electronic domains within a single graphene sheet using scanning transmission X-ray microscopy and provide insight into the modification of unoccupied levels.

    • Brian J. Schultz
    • , Christopher J. Patridge
    •  & Sarbajit Banerjee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A bubble at an air–liquid interface can form a liquid jet upon bursting, spraying aerosol droplets into the air. Leeet al. show that jetting is analogous to pinching-off in liquid coalescence, which may be useful in applications that prevent jet formation and in the improved incorporation of aerosols in climate models.

    • Ji San Lee
    • , Byung Mook Weon
    •  & Wah-Keat Lee

  • Article |

    Waveplates are used in optoelectronics to alter the polarization of light, but they do not typically perform achromatically, which is important for applications such as three-dimensional displays. Here, biologically inspired periodically multilayered structures are produced, which function as achromatic visible-light waveplates.

    • Yi-Jun Jen
    • , Akhlesh Lakhtakia
    •  & Jyun-Rong Lai

  • Article |

    Optoelectronic devices such as conventional semiconductor lasers are used to study the chaotic behaviour of nonlinear systems. Here chaos is observed for quantum-dot microlasers operating close to the quantum limit with potential for new directions in the study of chaos in quantum systems.

    • Ferdinand Albert
    • , Caspar Hopfmann
    •  & Ido Kanter

  • Article |

    Single nanoparticles are known to emit light intermittently, or 'blink', but the mechanisms describing this phenomenon are not fully understood. This study demonstrates that, for small clusters of blinking nanoparticles, the number of particles within a cluster dramatically influences blinking time.

    • Siying Wang
    • , Claudia Querner
    •  & Marija Drndic

  • Article |

    SiO2 glass and helium are important in various fields of science and engineering. Sato et al. show SiO2glass to be less compressible in helium under high pressure, which may be relevant for the interpretation of high-pressure experiments and in the design of new materials.

    • Tomoko Sato
    • , Nobumasa Funamori
    •  & Takehiko Yagi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Negative thermal expansion—contraction upon heating—is an unusual process that may be exploited to produce materials with zero or other controlled thermal expansion values. Azumaet al. observe negative thermal expansion in BiNiO3which is a result of Bi/Ni charge-transfer transitions.

    • Masaki Azuma
    • , Wei-tin Chen
    •  & J. Paul Attfield

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding how the high-energy physics of Mott-like excitations affects condensate formation is a key challenge in high-temperature superconductivity. Giannettiet al. clarify the relationship of many-body CuO2excitations and the onset of superconductivity using a new optical pump supercontinuum-probe technique.

    • Claudio Giannetti
    • , Federico Cilento
    •  & Fulvio Parmigiani

  • Article |

    Hydro-responsive plant movements have provided inspiration for the design of adaptive materials. Harringtonet al. investigate the hydration-dependent unfolding of ice plant seed capsules and find an origami-like folding pattern, which could aid the development of biomimetic folding structures.

    • Matthew J. Harrington
    • , Khashayar Razghandi
    •  & Ingo Burgert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanoparticles continue to find research and industrial applications, but no single technique exists to characterise their physical properties. Now, an analytical ultracentrifugation method is described which allows the simulataneous determination of nanoparticle size, density and molecular weight distribution.

    • Randy P. Carney
    • , Jin Young Kim
    •  & Osman M. Bakr

  • Article |

    Lithium–sulphur batteries may achieve higher energy densities than conventional lithium-ion cells, but the dissolution of sulphur intermediates is a continuing challenge. Here this problem is overcome using a cathode with a mesoporous structure that is able to accommodate intermediate polysulphide anions.

    • Xiulei Ji
    • , Scott Evers
    •  & Linda F. Nazar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Two-dimensional fluid interfaces are ubiquitous, but studying their surface dynamic properties is difficult because of coupling between the film and bulk fluid. Choiet al.combine active microrheology with fluorescence microscopy to image fluid interfaces under applied stress.

    • S.Q. Choi
    • , S. Steltenkamp
    •  & T.M. Squires

  • Article |

    Sintering is the basis for the production of many metallic and composite materials. Gruppet al. use a new technique to measure the rotation of microscopic copper particles during sintering and find intrinsic rotations to be the dominant movement.

    • R. Grupp
    • , M. Nöthe
    •  & J. Banhart

  • Article |

    Solid gold is most stable as a face-centred cubic structure, and stable colloidal gold with hexagonal close packing has not been produced. Huanget al.prepare square gold sheets with hexagonal close packing that are stable under ambient conditions.

    • Xiao Huang
    • , Shaozhou Li
    •  & Hua Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Temperature-controlled regulation of thermal conductivity is difficult to achieve because thermal properties do not change significantly through solid-state phase transitions. Here temperature control of thermal conductivities is demonstrated using liquid–solid phase transitions in a nanoparticle suspension.

    • Ruiting Zheng
    • , Jinwei Gao
    •  & Gang Chen

  • Article |

    Melting-related phenomena are of fundamental and applied interest, but the melting theory is poorly understood. Levitas and Samani develop an advanced phase-field theory of melting coupled to mechanics that resolves existing contradictions and reveals the features of melting phenomena.

    • Valery I Levitas
    •  & Kamran Samani

  • Article |

    Infrared cameras are used for night vision and in medical diagnostics, but currently only present monochrome images. Krishnaet al. demonstrate a monolithically intergrated plasmonic infrared quantum dot camera as a step towards coloured infrared imaging.

    • Sang Jun Lee
    • , Zahyun Ku
    •  & Sam Kyu Noh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electron–hole exchange interaction is an intrinsic property of semiconductors, which affects their fine structure. Brovelliet al. demonstrate a nanoengineering-based approach that provides control over the exchange interaction energy at nearly constant emission energy, which cannot be carried out using core-only nanocrystals.

    • S. Brovelli
    • , R.D. Schaller
    •  & V.I. Klimov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pattern-forming processes in simple fluids and suspensions are well understood, but displacement morphologies in frictional fluids and granular mixtures have not been studied extensively. Sandneset al. consider the effects of Coulomb friction and compressibility on the fluid dynamics of granular mixtures.

    • B. Sandnes
    • , E.G. Flekkøy
    •  & H. See

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