Physical sciences articles within Nature Materials

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  • Article |

    MXenes with borate polyanion terminations are synthesized using a flux-assisted eutectic molten etching approach. These triatomic-layer terminations empower MXenes with considerably improved charge transport and charge storage capabilities.

    • Dongqi Li
    • , Wenhao Zheng
    •  & Xinliang Feng

  • Research Briefing |

    Photolysis and ion migration under electrical bias cause intrinsic instability in halide perovskite solar cells. By harnessing materials that both capture and confine iodide and polyiodide ions at the perovskite surface, the stability of devices under ultraviolet irradiation, thermal–light conditions or reverse bias can be greatly increased.

  • News & Views |

    Precision laser irradiation of liquid-crystal polymer networks with dynamic bonds enables reversible phase patterning to create multi-stimuli responsive materials towards wearable devices and information encryption.

    • Elizabeth A. Recker
    • , Joy Zhou
    •  & Zachariah A. Page

  • Article |

    Scanning tunnelling microscopy of doped RuCl3 shows distinct charge orderings at the lower and upper Hubbard bands, which can be attributed to a correlation-driven honeycomb hole crystal composed of hole-rich Ru sites and a rotational-symmetry-breaking paired electron crystal composed of electron-rich Ru–Ru bonds.

    • Zhizhan Qiu
    • , Yixuan Han
    •  & Jiong Lu

  • Article |

    The authors investigate the origins of chirality transfer across length scales, quantitatively demonstrating how chirality propagates from the molecular to liquid crystal level in filamentous virus systems.

    • Eric Grelet
    •  & Maxime M. C. Tortora

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors demonstrate a programmable topological photonic chip with large-scale integration of silicon photonic nanocircuits and microresonators that can be rapidly reprogrammed to implement diverse multifunctionalities.

    • Tianxiang Dai
    • , Anqi Ma
    •  & Jianwei Wang

  • Article |

    Understanding the origin of photoinduced water splitting on TiO2 is crucial to control photocatalytic surface reactions. A photoexcited-hole-transfer-driven mechanism now shows that water dissociation is strongly coupled with dynamic lattice distortion (photoexcited phonons) on TiO2 surfaces.

    • Peiwei You
    • , Daqiang Chen
    •  & Sheng Meng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum coherent control of single-photon-emitting defect spins have been reported in hexagonal boron nitride, revealing that spin coherence is mainly governed by coupling to a few proximal nuclei and can be prolonged by decoupling protocols.

    • Hannah L. Stern
    • , Carmem M. Gilardoni
    •  & Mete Atatüre

  • News & Views |

    Integrating electrochemically actuated soft robotics with ultra-flexible microelectrodes enables reversible and gentle wrapping around nerves for high-quality recordings.

    • Klas Tybrandt

  • News & Views |

    Halide perovskite nanocrystal scintillators detect high-energy protons with sensitivity suitable for clinical applications.

    • Matthew C. Beard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lithium-rich oxygen-redox cathodes demonstrate high capacities, but lose energy density when cycled, showing cation disordering and formation of nanovoids and bulk molecular O2. These structural changes are shown to be a consequence of a kinetically viable and thermodynamically favoured local phase segregation mechanism.

    • Kit McColl
    • , Samuel W. Coles
    •  & M. Saiful Islam

  • Article |

    Control over topological antiferromagnetic entities is achieved at room temperature in multiferroic nanodevices using an electric field that induces magnetoelectric coupling to ferroelectric centre states.

    • Arthur Chaudron
    • , Zixin Li
    •  & Vincent Garcia

  • News & Views |

    The slow turn-on speed in accumulation-mode organic electrochemical transistors is explained by asymmetric ion transport in switching kinetics.

    • Hang Yu
    •  & Jenny Nelson

  • News & Views |

    A wide range of zero-dimensional powders can be converted into versatile, high-performance one-dimensional micro-/nanofibres by using two-dimensional cellulose sheets as a mediator, preserving the particles’ nanostructural features and acting as building blocks for complex geometric shapes to satisfy application requirements.

    • Xizheng Wang
    •  & Liangbing Hu

  • News & Views |

    ‘Two colour’ pump–probe experiments on yttrium iron garnet discs demonstrate how to harness dissipation of magnetic oscillations. This may have important implications for the use of magnetic materials for information processing.

    • Takis Kontos

  • News & Views |

    Physical vapour deposition of small-molecule glass formers onto soft substrates enhances the local dynamics at the top free surface, leading to the formation of denser glasses and providing access to states deeper in the potential energy landscape.

    • Connie B. Roth

  • News & Views |

    Strong bulk van der Waals materials can be created from water-mediated densification of two-dimensional nanosheets by near-room-temperature moulding, establishing a pathway for the energy-efficient fabrication of a wide range of bulk van der Waals materials and even composites for various applications.

    • Tom Lawson
    •  & Liming Dai

  • News & Views |

    Modified Suzuki–Miyaura polymerization procedures provide a scalable and reproducible route to regioregular conjugated polymers.

    • Mario Leclerc
    •  & Serge Beaupré

  • Article |

    The emergence of chiral morphologies from achiral building blocks is not well understood. Deep learning-based interpretation provides representative models for the process of symmetry breaking and chiral development during the growth of gold nanoparticles.

    • Sang Won Im
    • , Dongsu Zhang
    •  & Ki Tae Nam

  • Article |

    Iodide-related defects pose serious challenges to the irradiation, thermal, light or reverse-bias stabilities of perovskite solar cells. Here, the authors find that by using the iodide/polyiodide capture and confine effects of perfluorodecyl iodide interfacing with perovskites, inverted perovskite solar cells achieve much improved stabilities.

    • Xiaoxue Ren
    • , Jifei Wang
    •  & Yongbo Yuan

  • News & Views |

    Liquid bioelectronics based on a permanent fluidic magnet made from three-dimensional assembled magnetic colloidal particles can be injected into the surface of the heart for cardiovascular monitoring and subsequently retrieved after use.

    • Jiahong Li
    • , Yadong Xu
    •  & Wei Gao

  • Article |

    The molten structure of plutonium oxide—a component of mixed oxide nuclear fuels—is measured, showing some degree of covalent bonding. Its atomic structure is similar to that of cerium oxide, which could be a non-radioactive structural surrogate.

    • Stephen K. Wilke
    • , Chris J. Benmore
    •  & Richard Weber

  • Article |

    The magnetism-mediated assembly of non-Brownian magnetic colloidal particles into a three-dimensional oriented and ramified magnetic network yields permanent fluidic magnets that are used in a self-powered, liquid-based wireless cardiovascular sensor.

    • Xun Zhao
    • , Yihao Zhou
    •  & Jun Chen

  • Article |

    An interface modification strategy has been developed to uniformly distribute high-density sub-10 nm coherent MgO particles in an Al matrix, resulting in high strength and creep resistance at temperatures up to 500 °C.

    • Xiangren Bai
    • , Haonan Xie
    •  & Chunnian He

  • Article |

    A strategy of on-device phase engineering of two-dimensional materials is proposed, allowing the in situ realization of various lattice phases with distinct stoichiometries and versatile functions.

    • Xiaowei Liu
    • , Junjie Shan
    •  & Feng Miao

  • Article |

    By combining nano-spot angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy, the authors resolve the fine electronic structure of the flat band and remote bands of twisted bilayer graphene as the twist angle varies, revealing a spectral weight transfer between remote bands that is attributed to lattice relaxations.

    • Qian Li
    • , Hongyun Zhang
    •  & Shuyun Zhou

  • Article |

    Combining resonant inelastic X-ray scattering and photoluminescence spectroscopy, an elementary excitation in hexagonal-boron-nitride-based single-photon emitters has been demonstrated, giving rise to multiple regular harmonics that can explain the wide frequency range of these emitters.

    • Jonathan Pelliciari
    • , Enrique Mejia
    •  & Gabriele Grosso

  • Article |

    The turn-off time is generally faster than the turn-on time in accumulation mode organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs), but the mechanism is less understood. Here the authors find different transient behaviours of turn-on and turn-off in accumulation mode OECTs, and ion transport is the limiting factor of device kinetics.

    • Jiajie Guo
    • , Shinya E. Chen
    •  & David S. Ginger

  • Article |

    Ion exchange is a powerful method to access metastable materials for energy storage, but identifying lithium and sodium interchange in layered oxides remains challenging. Using such model materials, vacancy level and corresponding lithium preference are shown to be crucial for ion exchange pathway accessibility.

    • Yu Han
    • , Weihang Xie
    •  & Chong Liu

  • Article |

    The authors report coexisting ferromagnetism, polar distortion and metallicity in quasi-two-dimensional Ca3Co3O8, providing a platform to exploit magnetoelectric coupling in a metallic system.

    • Jianbing Zhang
    • , Shengchun Shen
    •  & Pu Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Harnessing premature necking produces a rapid multiplication of dislocations to interact with local chemical orders for work hardening in VCoNi alloy, achieving ductility of 20% and yield strength of 2 GPa during room-temperature and cryogenic deformation.

    • Bowen Xu
    • , Huichao Duan
    •  & Xiaolei Wu

  • Research Briefing |

    Soft pressure sensors drift under prolonged high stress because of the creep of soft materials, which causes inaccurate measurements. Now, through molecular-level design, a leakage-free and creep-free polyelectrolyte elastomer is synthesized, and an iontronic sensor using the polyelectrolyte elastomer shows very low signal drift under a high static pressure.

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