Physics articles within Nature Materials

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  • 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 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

  • News & Views |

    Better control over the quality of materials dissipates doubts about charge order in infinite-layer nickelates and indicates that a previously observed superstructure is probably a spurious effect related to other crystalline phases. This finding strengthens the similarities between nickelates and cuprates.

    • Giacomo Ghiringhelli

  • Research Briefing |

    Electrocaloric effects have not hitherto been experimentally studied at a phase transition created by strain. It is now shown that the continuous transition created by epitaxial strain in strontium titanate films greatly enhances electrocaloric effects over a wide range of temperatures, including room temperature.

  • News & Views |

    The atomic reconstruction and stacking arrangement in twisted trilayer graphene with a range of varying twist angles are elucidated by four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy, revealing the hierarchical moiré of moiré superstructures that govern the structural symmetry at different length scales.

    • Ruichun Luo
    •  & Wu Zhou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An orbitally ordered state in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x is revealed, which splits the energy levels of oxygen orbitals by ~50 meV.

    • Shuqiu Wang
    • , Niall Kennedy
    •  & Shane M. O’Mahony

  • Article |

    Understanding mesoscale structure and dynamics in organic mixed ionic–electronic conductors is crucial. Mesoscale strain kinetics and structural hysteresis have been studied, and they uncover the coupling between charge carrier dynamics and mesoscale order in organic mixed ionic–electronic conductors.

    • Ruiheng Wu
    • , Dilara Meli
    •  & Christopher J. Takacs

  • Article |

    Optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) is an efficient mechanism for quantum sensors and has been discovered in a few systems, but all have technological limitations. Here the authors report room temperature ODMR in single defects in GaN, promising for integrated quantum sensing applications.

    • Jialun Luo
    • , Yifei Geng
    •  & Gregory D. Fuchs

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light-induced artificial goosebumps on liquid crystal elastomer skin are used to precisely manipulate passive microstructures, achieving a localized and controllable system for programmable micromachines.

    • Mingchao Zhang
    • , Aniket Pal
    •  & Metin Sitti

  • Article |

    Precession phase of a magnetic material is shown to be recalled over timescales far exceeding that of Gilbert damping.

    • T. Makiuchi
    • , T. Hioki
    •  & E. Saitoh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Intense light pulses can induce symmetry breaking, as for the generation of ferroelectricity in SrTiO3. Using ultrafast X-ray diffuse scattering at a free-electron laser, nonlinear phonon interactions that occur on such mid-IR excitation are observed, with a theory for the dynamics presented.

    • M. Fechner
    • , M. Först
    •  & A. Cavalleri

  • Article |

    Soft building blocks tend to be near spherical, limiting their packing structures to those found in metallic systems. Here the authors report the spontaneous generation of highly deformed mesoatoms using molecular pentagons and observe Frank–Kasper phases not found in metal alloys.

    • Xian-You Liu
    • , Xiao-Yun Yan
    •  & Stephen Z. D. Cheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Samples of NdNiO2+x are prepared with meticulous control of the oxygen content. Their X-ray scattering and spectroscopy measurements then reveal that the previously reported charge density wave in undoped infinite-layer nickelates is, in fact, a spurious effect.

    • C. T. Parzyck
    • , N. K. Gupta
    •  & K. M. Shen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors propose a non-Hermitian topological insulator with a real-valued energy spectrum based on a periodically driven Floquet model implemented in a photonic platform where generalized parity–time symmetry is protected against spontaneous symmetry breaking under a spatiotemporal gain and loss distribution.

    • Alexander Fritzsche
    • , Tobias Biesenthal
    •  & Alexander Szameit

  • Article |

    Propagation losses have limited the practical use of polaritons in photonic applications. Here the authors demonstrate a substantial enhancement in the propagation distance of phonon polaritons, employing synthetic optical excitation of complex frequency with virtual gain synthesized by combining multiple real frequency measurements.

    • Fuxin Guan
    • , Xiangdong Guo
    •  & Shuang Zhang

  • Article |

    Employing light-transformable polymers, multiple physical unclonable functions are demonstrated within a single device with all-optical reversible reconfigurability. Such devices may enable quantum secure authentication and nonlinear cryptographic key generation applications.

    • Sara Nocentini
    • , Ulrich Rührmair
    •  & Francesco Riboli

  • Article |

    The authors imprint a moiré potential on a remote monolayer semiconductor through the moiré potential created in a remote MoSe2/WS2 moiré bilayer. The imprinted moiré potential enables gate-controlled generation of flat bands and correlated insulating states in the targeted monolayer.

    • Jie Gu
    • , Jiacheng Zhu
    •  & Kin Fai Mak

  • Feature |

    M. I. Eremets, V. S. Minkov, A. P. Drozdov and P. P. Kong discuss the substantial progress made in discovering and developing near-room-temperature superconductivity in hydrogen-rich materials. They focus on achieving reproducibility under the challenging experimental conditions of megabar pressures.

    • M. I. Eremets
    • , V. S. Minkov
    •  & P. P. Kong

  • Article |

    The authors combine laser excitation and scanning tunnelling spectroscopy to visualize the electron and hole distributions in photoexcited moiré excitons in twisted bilayer WS2. This photocurrent tunnelling microscopy approach enables the study of photoexcited non-equilibrium moiré phenomena at atomic scales.

    • Hongyuan Li
    • , Ziyu Xiang
    •  & Feng Wang

  • Research Briefing |

    Hybrid organic–inorganic perovskite materials have promise as the photovoltaic technology of the future. A method for spectroscopic optical control reveals how the structural dynamics and vibrations of a perovskite’s organic cations affect the electronic performance of working photovoltaic devices.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Current physical neuromorphic computing faces critical challenges of how to reconfigure key physical dynamics of a system to adapt computational performance to match a diverse range of tasks. Here the authors present a task-adaptive approach to physical neuromorphic computing based on on-demand control of computing performance using various magnetic phases of chiral magnets.

    • Oscar Lee
    • , Tianyi Wei
    •  & Hidekazu Kurebayashi

  • News & Views |

    Non-equilibrium thermodynamics describes activity-stabilized mixed states in complex active-matter systems.

    • Tian Huang
    • , Qi Pan
    •  & Steve Granick

  • Comment |

    An essential part of developing organic mixed ionic–electronic conducting materials and organic electrochemical transistors is consistent and standardized reporting of the product of charge carrier mobility and volumetric capacitance, the μC* product. This Comment argues that unexpected changes in transistor channel resistance can overestimate this figure of merit, leading to a confusion of comparisons in the literature.

    • Maryam Shahi
    • , Vianna N. Le
    •  & Alexandra F. Paterson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ferroelectric dead layers can form at perovskite interfaces—a major challenge in integrating oxide thin films into devices. Here, by depositing an in-plane-polarized epitaxial buffer layer of Bi5FeTi3O15, out-of-plane polarization is demonstrated in ultrathin films down to the single-unit-cell level.

    • Elzbieta Gradauskaite
    • , Quintin N. Meier
    •  & Morgan Trassin

  • News & Views |

    Quantum dots couple to form artificial molecules that allow for variable colour emission in response to an electric field.

    • James Cassidy
    • , Justin Ondry
    •  & Dmitri V. Talapin

  • Article |

    The rational design of out-of-equilibrium demixing transitions remains challenging. Active fluids are used to control the liquid–liquid phase separation of passive DNA nanostars and establish the activity-based control of the phase diagram.

    • Alexandra M. Tayar
    • , Fernando Caballero
    •  & Zvonimir Dogic

  • News & Views |

    By means of a precise folding–tearing process, screw dislocations with helical cores — appearing in pairs and taking on a DNA-like double-helix structure — are engineered to control the growth of twisted bilayer graphene.

    • Pascal Pochet
    •  & Harley T. Johnson

  • News & Views |

    Metamaterial adhesives with nonlinear cut architectures provide strong and reversible adhesion, directionality and spatially programmable adhesive strength.

    • Geonjun Choi
    •  & Hoon Eui Jeong

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