Nanoscience and technology articles within Communications Materials

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Two-dimensional materials have well-defined atomic-scale structure, which has the potential to be tuned by processing. Here, substrate-induced straining during the growth of ReS2 causes the formation of martensite-like domain structures.

    • Lingli Huang
    • , Fangyuan Zheng
    •  & Thuc Hue Ly

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Oxygen species on a TiO2 surface exist in different redox states, which can be switched between by electron tunneling with an atomic force tip. Here, a fast experimental setup enables statistically significant tunneling rates to be determined, revealing changes in electronic structure.

    • Yuuki Adachi
    • , Ján Brndiar
    •  & Lev Kantorovich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The redistribution of water molecules when an ion passes through a nanopore is known to create complex patterns. Here, an analytical model accurately predicts the patterns when an ion passes through a graphene nanopore, and reveals the physical origins of the patterns.

    • Miraslau L. Barabash
    • , William A. T. Gibby
    •  & Peter V. E. McClintock

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plant cells are elaborate three-dimensional polymer nano-constructs with complex chemistry. Here, multimodal scattering nearfield optical microscopy of poplar trees is used to establish in situ high-resolution mappings of the local dielectric functions and compositional distribution of lignin and cellulose in plant cell walls.

    • Anne M. Charrier
    • , Aubin C. Normand
    •  & Aude L. Lereu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Out-of-plane photon emission in 2D semiconductors is rare but crucial for efficient light manipulation in planar optoelectronic devices and photonic chips. Here, an out-of-plane dipolar component of trions in monolayer WSe2 is revealed by exciting the whispering gallery modes of SiO2 microspherical resonators.

    • Daniel Andres-Penares
    • , Mojtaba Karimi Habil
    •  & Juan F. Sánchez-Royo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical gratings are typically composed of periodic grooves, but these suffer from issues with light scattering and are fragile. Here, a groove-less WO3 grating is demonstrated, which uses electron-proton synergistic doping to spatially tune a rewritable insulator-metal transition and coloration.

    • Yuliang Chen
    • , Changlong Hu
    •  & Chongwen Zou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Controlling the speed of electrophoresis across a solid-state nanopore is crucial for single-molecule sensing and sequencing. Here, a gate-controlled nanopore is able to trap and slow-down the translocation dynamics of nanoparticles by balancing the electrophoretic and hydrodynamic drag forces.

    • Makusu Tsutsui
    • , Sou Ryuzaki
    •  & Tomoji Kawai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lithiation of anodes during cycling of lithium-ion batteries generates stresses that reduce operation lifetime. Here, a composite silicon-based anode with a nanoscale vaulted architecture shows high mechanical stability and electrochemical performance in a lithium-ion battery.

    • Marta Haro
    • , Pawan Kumar
    •  & Panagiotis Grammatikopoulos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wearable, real-time devices that can monitor hormones are important for personalized healthcare. Here, a platinum/graphene aptamer extended gate field effect transistor is shown to detect cortisol, the primary stress hormone, in physiological fluid.

    • Shokoofeh Sheibani
    • , Luca Capua
    •  & Adrian M. Ionescu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hyperbolic materials have unique optical properties such as negative refraction and highly directional polaritons, relevant in super-resolution imaging. Here, the topological insulator Bi2Se3 is shown to host hyperbolic edge-confined exciton polaritons that can be steered via engineered edge defects.

    • Robin Lingstädt
    • , Nahid Talebi
    •  & Peter A. van Aken

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanoplastics are a substantial environmental risk, and it is important to understanding where and how they are released into the environment. Here, a simple methodology is reported for the one-step synthesis of radiolabelled nanopolystyrene that can be used in environmental studies.

    • Maya Al-Sid-Cheikh
    • , Steven J. Rowland
    •  & Richard C. Thompson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The origin of large mobility modulation in ultrathin oxide transistors, promising for their high on-off ratio, remains mostly unknown. Here, a 106 gate-induced mobility modulation in 3.5 nm-thick TiOx transistors is explained by a high density of tail states, mediating variable range hopping of carriers.

    • Nikhil Tiwale
    • , Ashwanth Subramanian
    •  & Chang-Yong Nam

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sensitive and scalable gas sensors are essential in daily life air-quality monitoring. Here, a monolithically integrated gas sensing circuit based on two-step-grown polycrystalline MoS2 films is fabricated, showing good switching and NO2 gas sensing response in a wide detection range of 1 to 256 ppm.

    • Sehwan Kim
    • , Heekyeong Park
    •  & Sunkook Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The discovery of new alloys with desirable mechanical properties is traditionally a time consuming process. Here, machine learning is applied to the discovery of aluminum alloys, revealing a compositionally-lean alloy with an ultimate tensile strength of 952 MPa and 6.3% elongation.

    • Jiaheng Li
    • , Yingbo Zhang
    •  & Hui Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Intermediate band solar cells have the ability to reach efficiencies similar to multijunction cells using a single semiconductor junction. Here, enhanced two-photon carrier generation is demonstrated on a silicon substrate in an InGaN/GaN quantum dot-in-nanowire heterostructure intermediate band solar cell.

    • Ross Cheriton
    • , Sharif M. Sadaf
    •  & Karin Hinzer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The design of advanced batteries relies on careful control of molecular interactions. Here, a protein nanopore, inserted into a lipid membrane, is shown to discern supramolecular polysulfide/cyclodextrin complexes differing by a single sulfur atom, a concept that might be used to design membrane separators in batteries.

    • Fanny Bétermier
    • , Benjamin Cressiot
    •  & Jean-Marie Tarascon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The quantum spin Hall (QSH) phase is an important feature of two dimensional topological insulators and is typically observed at temperatures below 100 K. Here, the authors report the observation of a room temperature quantum spin Hall phase in few-atom-layer 1T′-MoS2 patterned onto the 2H semiconducting phase by low-power laser beam irradiation.

    • Naoki Katsuragawa
    • , Mizuki Nishizawa
    •  & Junji Haruyama

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bovine serum albumin proteins are used to fabricate antifouling coatings, but it is unclear which of these give the best coatings. Here, bovine serum albumin proteins from different purification processes are investigated, revealing that fatty acid-free proteins give superior antifouling properties.

    • Gamaliel Junren Ma
    • , Abdul Rahim Ferhan
    •  & Nam-Joon Cho

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Emergent nanoscale order in organic materials is typically characterized by small-angle X-ray scattering. Here, angular fluctuations in the diffraction patterns are used to probe the 3D structure of self-assembled lipid membranes, revealing previously inaccessible details on the phase geometry.

    • Andrew V. Martin
    • , Alexander Kozlov
    •  & Connie Darmanin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Topological insulators in contact with a superconductor could house unusual physical states such as Majorana fermions. Here, the authors fabricate and report the  electron-transport characteristics of Josephson junctions built using a nanoscale topological insulator, finding evidence for ballistic transport in the surface states of the nanocrystals.

    • Vasily S. Stolyarov
    • , Dmitry S. Yakovlev
    •  & Dimitri Roditchev

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    The current surge in data generation necessitates devices that can store and analyze data in an energy efficient way. This Review summarizes and discusses developments on the use of spintronic devices for energy-efficient data storage and logic applications, and energy harvesting based on spin.

    • Jorge Puebla
    • , Junyeon Kim
    •  & Yoshichika Otani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nano-scale coatings are important for controlling the functional behavior of surfaces. Here, a deposition process in liquid hydrocarbons is reported for metal oxides, in which a thin water coating on the substrate reacts with chemical precursors, forming a nano-scale layer.

    • Ahmed M. Jasim
    • , Xiaoqing He
    •  & Yangchuan Xing

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