Materials chemistry articles within Nature

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  • Letter |

    Very slow cooling, over several days, of solutions of complementary-DNA-modified nanoparticles through the melting temperature of the system produces nanoparticle assemblies with the Wulff equilibrium crystal structure, thus showing that DNA hybridization can direct nanoparticle assembly along a pathway that mimics atomic crystallization.

    • Evelyn Auyeung
    • , Ting I. N. G. Li
    •  & Chad A. Mirkin

  • Letter |

    The magnetosome-associated protein mamP is an iron oxidase that reveals a unique arrangement of a self-plugged PDZ domain fused to two magnetochrome domains, defining a new class of c-type cytochrome exclusively found in magnetotactic bacteria.

    • Marina I. Siponen
    • , Pierre Legrand
    •  & David Pignol

  • Letter |

    Thermal transitions of polyisocyanide single molecules to polymer bundles and finally networks lead to hydrogels mimicking the properties of biopolymer intermediate-filament networks; their analysis shows that bundling and chain stiffness are crucial design parameters for hydrogels.

    • Paul H. J. Kouwer
    • , Matthieu Koepf
    •  & Alan E. Rowan

  • News |

    The 3D ‘monoliths’ — grown between forming ice crystals — add elasticity to the super-strength and conductivity of graphene sheets.

    • James Mitchell Crow

  • Article |

    A general method of creating colloidal particles that can self-assemble into ‘colloidal molecules’ is described: surface patches with well-defined symmetries are functionalized using DNA with single-stranded sticky ends and imitate hybridized atomic orbitals to form highly directional bonds.

    • Yufeng Wang
    • , Yu Wang
    •  & David J. Pine

  • News & Views |

    Liposomes are ubiquitous components of skin moisturizers and other personal-care products. Modified liposomes prepared from receptor-like molecules open up fresh opportunities for therapeutic and industrial applications.

    • Cyrus R. Safinya
    •  & Kai K. Ewert

  • Letter |

    Hydrogels with improved mechanical properties, made by combining polymer networks with ionic and covalent crosslinks, should expand the scope of applications, and may serve as model systems to explore mechanisms of deformation and energy dissipation.

    • Jeong-Yun Sun
    • , Xuanhe Zhao
    •  & Zhigang Suo

  • News & Views |

    A reaction that folds up large aromatic molecules and fixes them into bowl shapes expands opportunities for making nanometre-scale objects from single sheets of carbon. Such objects have potential applications in electronics.

    • Jay S. Siegel

  • Letter |

    A new class of liquid crystals is reported that undergoes light-induced ordering and order-increasing phase transitions; possible applications include ophthalmic devices, such as variable transmission sunglasses.

    • Tamas Kosa
    • , Ludmila Sukhomlinova
    •  & Timothy J. Bunning

  • Letter |

    Ordering in liquid-crystal applications is usually achieved using surfactants, but here, in modelled nanodroplets of liquid crystals and surfactants, the liquid crystals control the ordering effects, which resemble those seen in block copolymer ordering, such as spots and stripes.

    • J. A. Moreno-Razo
    • , E. J. Sambriski
    •  & J. J. de Pablo

  • Outlook |

    Silicon is more than an incumbent technology competing with graphene — it also has a history researchers should remember.

    • Michael Segal

  • Outlook |

    Exploring graphene's chemical properties reveals a world of potential away from the purely two-dimensional, says Rodney Ruoff.

    • Rodney Ruoff

  • News & Views |

    The synthesis of analogues of graphene by two different means provides insight into the origins of massless particles and paves the way for studies of materials with exotic topological properties. See Letters p.302 & p.306

    • Jonathan Simon
    •  & Markus Greiner

  • News & Views |

    By making polymers whose central blocks have a range of lengths, materials have been prepared that contain separate, intermeshed domains extending throughout the material — a highly desirable structure.

    • Richard A Register

  • News & Views |

    The ligand-mediated binding of colloid particles to each other is more effective if the particles are flat rather than curved. This finding opens up opportunities for the design of self-assembling materials.

    • Sharon C. Glotzer

  • News |

    The only known natural example of the material that won last year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry comes from an ancient meteorite.

    • Richard Van Noorden

  • Letter |

    Observation of a many-body pairing gap in a trapped, 2D atomic Fermi gas shows that ultracold atomic gases can be used to emulate the physics of correlated 2D superconductors, with the ultimate goal of understanding high-temperature superconductivity.

    • Michael Feld
    • , Bernd Fröhlich
    •  & Michael Köhl

  • News & Views |

    Quantum computing architectures based on hybrid systems require strong coupling and information exchange between their constituent elements. These two features have been achieved in one such hybrid setting. See Letter p.221

    • Irinel Chiorescu

  • News & Views |

    To understand the properties of many useful materials, the chemical structures that form within them from elements of low relative atomic mass must be determined. A new X-ray imaging technique does just that.

    • Christian G. Schroer

  • News & Views |

    In systems consisting of just a few layers of graphene, the relative orientation of adjacent layers depends on the material's preparation method. Light has now been shed on the relationship between stacking arrangement and electronic properties.

    • Allan H. MacDonald
    •  & Rafi Bistritzer

  • News & Views |

    Single chains of a specially designed polymer fold up in water to form an encapsulated catalytic chamber. This supramolecular assembly strategy mimics the one used by enzymes in nature.

    • Nicolas Giuseppone
    •  & Jean-François Lutz

  • News & Views |

    A new study reports that the shapes and surface patterns of thin films of a stretched material can be modified by shining ultraviolet light at it. The resulting topologies depend on the exposure pattern, the applied stress and the sample thickness.

    • Wilhelm T. S. Huck

  • News & Views |

    Rubbery polymers have been made in which damage is healed by exposure to light. The healing mechanism allows localized, on-demand repair, and might help to extend the lifetimes of materials for many applications. See Letter p.334

    • Nancy R. Sottos
    •  & Jeffrey S. Moore

  • Letter |

    An attractive method to fabricate graphene transistors is transferring high-quality graphene sheets to a suitable substrate. This study identifies diamond-like carbon as a new substrate for graphene devices. It is attractive as few sources for scattering are expected at the interface that may lead to deterioration of device properties. Graphene transistors operating at radio frequencies with cutoff as high as 155 GHz and with scalable gate length are demonstrated. Unlike conventional semiconductor devices, the high-frequency performance of the graphene devices exhibits little temperature dependence down to 4.3 K, providing a much larger operation window than conventional devices.

    • Yanqing Wu
    • , Yu-ming Lin
    •  & Phaedon Avouris

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