Design, synthesis and processing articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article |

    Ball milling chemical reactions are of interest due to their environmental credentials and potential to achieve new reactions and materials. Here, the authors isolate a metastable material with a previously unknown net topology by in situmonitoring of the mechanosynthesis of a metal organic framework.

    • Athanassios D. Katsenis
    • , Andreas Puškarić
    •  & Tomislav Friščić

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While microparticle shape can have significant influence on their properties, simple ways to control shape are difficult to achieve. Here, the authors report a method giving a high degree of control over the shape of such structures by generating gradients of oxygen concentration during photopolymerization.

    • Tae Soup Shim
    • , Seung-Man Yang
    •  & Shin-Hyun Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is currently interest in two-dimensional graphene-like materials incorporating heteroatoms. Here, the authors synthesize a solution-processable, holey two-dimensional network with C2N stoichiometry containing evenly distributed holes and nitrogen atoms, and use it to fabricate a field effect transistor.

    • Javeed Mahmood
    • , Eun Kwang Lee
    •  & Jong-Beom Baek

  • Article |

    The integration of silicon optoelectronic devices in a fibre platform has great potential, but drawing such fibres is difficult. Using a simple, low cost and scalable method, Hou et al. fabricate a metre-long crystalline silicon-core, silica-clad fibre from a preform not containing elemental silicon.

    • Chong Hou
    • , Xiaoting Jia
    •  & Yoel Fink

  • Article |

    Understanding the degradation of materials subject to energetic radiation is important for the development of technologies based on nuclear fission. Here, the authors show that redox reactions of actinide compounds play an important role in their response to energetic radiation and their radiation tolerance.

    • Cameron L. Tracy
    • , Maik Lang
    •  & Rodney C. Ewing

  • Article |

    High nucleation density has thus far limited the quality and grain size of CVD-grown hexagonal boron nitride. Here, by optimizing the Ni ratio in Cu–Ni substrates, the authors successfully reduce nucleation density and report single-crystal hexagonal boron nitride grains up to 7500 μm2.

    • Guangyuan Lu
    • , Tianru Wu
    •  & Mianheng Jiang

  • Article |

    Single-walled carbon nanotube arrays have been proposed for use in electronics, but getting the tubes aligned and in high density is a very challenging task. Hu et al. show that catalyst particles dissolved in a substrate can slowly be brought to the surface, allowing continued controlled growth of nanotubes.

    • Yue Hu
    • , Lixing Kang
    •  & Jin Zhang

  • Article |

    Reading out the state of quantum bits is an essential requirement that any quantum computer implementation must satisfy. Gonzalez-Zalba et al. now show that in situresonant gate-based detection can be a more sensitive approach than external electrometers while reducing the qubit architecture’s complexity.

    • M. F. Gonzalez-Zalba
    • , S. Barraud
    •  & A. C. Betz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is a trade-off between increasing thickness of active layers in organic photovoltaic cells to be compatible with modern printing techniques and decreasing it to improve the device performance. Sun et al.report a nematic liquid crystalline molecular electron donor material used in thick layers.

    • Kuan Sun
    • , Zeyun Xiao
    •  & David J. Jones

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cationic polyelectrolytes have a broad range of applications, including membranes for fuel cells. Here, the authors report a family of cationic polyelectrolytes based on the highly modular cyclopropenium ion building block, which show high ionic conductivity and tunable physical properties.

    • Yivan Jiang
    • , Jessica L. Freyer
    •  & Luis M. Campos

  • Article |

    Biocompatibility is a limiting factor in the use of electronic sensors in physiological applications. Here, the authors present a flexible and conductive polymer gel as an adhesive interface material for electronic biosensors, also demonstrating in vivoheart attachment and monitoring.

    • Sungwon Lee
    • , Yusuke Inoue
    •  & Takao Someya

  • Article |

    Block copolymers are frequently used as self-assembling materials for nanoscale patterns, but controlling assembly for complex patterning is challenging. Here, the authors integrate masking features into organic–inorganic guide patterns, enabling precise pattern customization by directed self-assembly.

    • Gregory S. Doerk
    • , Joy Y. Cheng
    •  & Daniel P. Sanders

  • Article |

    The performance of solar cells based on metal-halide perovskites has improved rapidly in recent years. First principles calculations and experiments performed by Filip et al.suggest new routes to controlling the band gap of these materials, which could enable further improvements in their performance.

    • Marina R. Filip
    • , Giles E. Eperon
    •  & Feliciano Giustino

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Imaging biological tissues has long been an issue, particularly with regard to manipulation and dissection for SEM. Here, the authors present a simple technique for the stabilization of biological tissues via a synthetic fossilization process, requiring minimal expertise or equipment and involving few steps.

    • Jason L. Townson
    • , Yu-Shen Lin
    •  & Bryan Kaehr

  • Article |

    Printing text and images is a significant cause of paper and ink waste, leading to an increased focus on reusable alternatives. Here, the authors show that films of commercial dyes can be photoactivated with UV light and catalysts and, with an appropriate stabilizer, can be used as a rewritable display system.

    • Wenshou Wang
    • , Ning Xie
    •  & Yadong Yin

  • Article |

    Epitaxial crystal growth is widely used in electronics for the rational design of efficient devices. Here, Rupich et al. find a universal law for island size scaling, which outlines similarities and differences between self-assembly of nanocrystals and atomic epitaxial growth.

    • Sara M. Rupich
    • , Fernando C. Castro
    •  & Dmitri V. Talapin

  • Article |

    Mixtures of various size fullerenes are available as a component of fullerene soot, but isolating pure fullerenes is a challenging task. Here, the authors use a porphyrin-based supramolecular cage that encapsulates fullerenes with high selectivity and releases C60by a simple washing technique.

    • Cristina García-Simón
    • , Marc Garcia-Borràs
    •  & Xavi Ribas

  • Article |

    Metasurfaces are subwavelength structures that manipulate impinging waves into desired output waveforms, but building them for acoustic applications remains challenging. Exploiting tapered labyrinthine structures, Xie et al.present an acoustic metasurface that manipulates sound waves in a variety of ways.

    • Yangbo Xie
    • , Wenqi Wang
    •  & Steven A. Cummer

  • Article |

    Three-dimensional nanostructures have numerous applications and are normally fabricated via templating strategies. Here, the authors present a current-limited hard anodization approach for tunable, homogeneous anodic aluminium oxide, which can be used to template a range of periodic nanowire networks.

    • Jaime Martín
    • , Marisol Martín-González
    •  & Olga Caballero-Calero

  • Article |

    Polymer brush surface coatings are important biomaterials for the reduction of biomolecule and cell adhesion. Here, the authors use a recombinantly expressed, intrinsically disordered protein to form a stimuli-responsive and enzyme-active polymer brush surface.

    • Nithya Srinivasan
    • , Maniraj Bhagawati
    •  & Sanjay Kumar

  • Article |

    It has been predicted that when a polar discontinuity occurs in honeycomb lattices, wires of electrons or holes would appear. Here, the authors suggest different and realistic routes to engineer such wires in current two-dimensional materials, and validate these with first-principles calculations.

    • Marco Gibertini
    • , Giovanni Pizzi
    •  & Nicola Marzari

  • Article |

    The selection of polymeric dielectric materials for energy storage applications is not trivial, as several criteria must be satisfied simultaneously. Here, Sharma et al.present a high-throughput hierarchical strategy using the band gap and dielectric constant to screen and identify good candidates.

    • Vinit Sharma
    • , Chenchen Wang
    •  & Rampi Ramprasad

  • Article |

    Manipulating spin currents in graphene by the spin–orbit interaction is important for many technological developments. Here, the authors show that the presence of residual metallic adatoms in chemical vapour deposition graphene enhances its spin–orbit coupling by three orders of magnitude.

    • Jayakumar Balakrishnan
    • , Gavin Kok Wai Koon
    •  & Barbaros Özyilmaz

  • Article |

    Covalent organic frameworks are a potentially useful class of materials, although they are currently synthesized using relatively few reactions. Here, the authors show that the imidization reaction can be used to prepare a series of large pore polyimide frameworks with high surface area and thermal stability.

    • Qianrong Fang
    • , Zhongbin Zhuang
    •  & Yushan Yan

  • Article |

    Atomic manipulation can be used to fabricate unique structures at the atomic level but has previously been limited to conductive surfaces, mainly at low temperatures. Here, the authors present a systematic manipulation on an insulating surface using atomic force microscopy to construct complex patterns.

    • Shigeki Kawai
    • , Adam S. Foster
    •  & Ernst Meyer

  • Article |

    Crystal symmetries play an important role in the properties of materials, but allow little dynamic control once the materials have been grown. Here, the authors show that conducting oxides sandwiched between independently switchable ferroelectric films achieve tunable symmetry for controllable properties.

    • C. Becher
    • , M. Trassin
    •  & D. Meier

  • Article |

    Cloaking of a range of stimuli have been demonstrated in various metamaterials recently. Here, the authors report mechanical cloaking in a pentamode structure, leading to ‘unfeelability’ of a core in an elasto-mechanical core-shell system.

    • T. Bückmann
    • , M. Thiel
    •  & M. Wegener

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