Solid-state chemistry articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Great progress has been made in topochemistry of mobile oxygen anions, but metastable compounds have not yet been achieved by deintercalation of sulfur anions. Here, the authors prepare metastable oxychalcogenide phases by taking advantage of redox-reactive sulfur dimers embedded in a layered oxysulfide.

    • Shunsuke Sasaki
    • , Maria Teresa Caldes
    •  & Laurent Cario

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Borates offer extended structural diversity and promise in diverse applications. Here the authors report a borate with linear BO2 units as well as NMR spectroscopy characterization that provides a quantitative basis for identification of BO2 units in polycrystalline and non-crystalline samples.

    • Chunmei Huang
    • , Miriding Mutailipu
    •  & Shilie Pan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The obtention and study of actinide elements is challenging due to various factors including their radioactivity and scarcity. Herein, the authors characterize the atomic and electronic structure of Am, Cm, Bk, and Cf compounds using a transmission electron microscopy-based workflow that only requires nanogram amounts of the actinide element.

    • Alexander Müller
    • , Gauthier J.-P. Deblonde
    •  & Andrew M. Minor

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There are few reports of ferroelectricity due to symmetry breaking transition in A-site-ordered quadruple perovskites. Here, the authors find one with phase transition from a high-temperature centrosymmetric paraelectric phase to a low-temperature non-centrosymmetric ferroelectric phase in a high pressure synthesized compound.

    • Jianfa Zhao
    • , Jiacheng Gao
    •  & Changqing Jin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High-valent metal nitrides are difficult to stabilise due to the high thermodynamic stability and chemical inertness of N2. Here, the authors employ a large volume press to prepare an iron(IV) nitridoferrate Ca4FeIVN4 from Fe2N and Ca3N2 via azide-mediated oxidation under high pressure conditions.

    • Simon D. Kloß
    • , Arthur Haffner
    •  & J. Paul Attfield

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The charging of Fe and Mn oxide anodes in lithium-ion batteries are believed to form rocksalt phases via reconstructive conversion reactions. Here, the authors show that MxOy (M = Fe, Mn) transform into non-native body-centred cubic FeO and zincblende MnO via topotactic displacement-like pathways.

    • Xiao Hua
    • , Phoebe K. Allan
    •  & Andrew L. Goodwin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The development of the all solid-state battery requires the formation of stable solid/solid interfaces between different battery components. Here the authors tailor the composition to form both electrolyte and anode from the same novel family of perovskites with shared crystal chemistry.

    • Marco Amores
    • , Hany El-Shinawi
    •  & Edmund J. Cussen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chemical elements at high pressure may behave more consistently with their periodic properties than they do at ambient conditions. The authors report the synthesis of PH3 from black phosphorous and hydrogen, and the crystallization of the van der Waals compound (PH3)2H2 which fills a gap in the chemistry of adjacent elements in the periodic table.

    • Matteo Ceppatelli
    • , Demetrio Scelta
    •  & Maurizio Peruzzini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Properties of perovskite oxides can be changed by manipulating anion-vacancy order patterns, but they are difficult to control. Here the authors show strain-induced creation and switching of anion vacancies in perovskite films in which the direction or periodicity of anion-vacancy planes is altered depending on the substrate employed.

    • Takafumi Yamamoto
    • , Akira Chikamatsu
    •  & Hiroshi Kageyama

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Atomic structure of alkali metal is difficult to be revealed at room temperature because of the chemical reactivity and irradiation sensitivity. Here the authors show that electron beam-induced in situ growth of alkali metals enables the investigation of atomic structure and growth kinetics at high spatiotemporal resolution.

    • Chao Liang
    • , Xun Zhang
    •  & Yi Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Low-valent zinc clusters, though exceedingly rare, are appealing synthetic targets because there is evidence that they may show unconventional chemical and physical behavior. Here, the authors obtain a large heterometallic zinc-bismuth cluster anion and discover that it bears a metalloid {Zn12} core with four-center bonding and essentially zero-valent character.

    • Armin R. Eulenstein
    • , Yannick J. Franzke
    •  & Stefanie Dehnen

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    The development of high performing metal-ion batteries require guidelines to build improved electrodes and electrolytes. Here, the authors review the current state-of-the-art in the rational design of battery materials by exploiting the interplay between composition, crystal structure and electrochemical properties.

    • Artem M. Abakumov
    • , Stanislav S. Fedotov
    •  & Jean-Marie Tarascon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Materials with oxygen hyperstoichiometry received great attention in solid oxide fuel cells field because of the low activation energy of interstitial ion migration. Here the authors revealed the relationship between the structure and oxide ion migration for the whole series of CeNbO4+δ compounds.

    • Jian Li
    • , Fengjuan Pan
    •  & Junliang Sun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many Zintl ions with a single endohedrally encapsulated transition metal ion are known, but relatively few where clusters of two or more metals are present. Here, the authors report the synthesis and characterization of two clusters, [Au8Pb33]6− and [Au12Pb44]12−, which contain Au8 and Au12 cores surrounded by Pb shells.

    • Cong-Cong Shu
    • , Harry W. T. Morgan
    •  & Zhong-Ming Sun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Switching of nonlinear optical signals is attractive for photoelectronics and photonics, but development is hindered by a lack of control over the switch temperature. Here the authors report a coordination polymer system that serves as an alloy-like nonlinear optical switch with a tunable switch temperature.

    • Shi-Yong Zhang
    • , Xia Shu
    •  & Xiao-Ming Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The utilization of white-colored, wide-bandgap CO2 hydrogenation photocatalysts has been hindered by their limited light-harvesting ability. By making stoichiometric white indium oxide non-stoichiometric and black, it is transformed from a highly inactive to a highly active photothermal catalyst.

    • Lu Wang
    • , Yuchan Dong
    •  & Geoffrey A. Ozin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polarization change from directional electron transfer attracts considerable attention owing to its fast switching rate and potential light control. Here, the authors provide a proof-of-concept of electronic pyroelectricity induced by intramolecular electron transfer in the single crystal of a valence tautomeric compound.

    • Shu-Qi Wu
    • , Meijiao Liu
    •  & Osamu Sato

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Charge ordering in magnetite is an important example of the complex behaviour that emerges in transition metal oxides. Here the authors show that doping causes selective oxidation of one site in the established trimeron pattern, introducing an additional charge-ordered structure.

    • E. Pachoud
    • , J. Cumby
    •  & J. P. Attfield

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    The 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to a trio of pioneers of the modern lithium-ion battery. Here, Professor Arumugam Manthiram looks back at the evolution of cathode chemistry, discussing the three major categories of oxide cathode materials with an emphasis on the fundamental solid-state chemistry that has enabled these advances.

    • Arumugam Manthiram

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the crystal structure of different calcium phosphates is important for a range of different subjects from geology to biomedicine. Here, the authors report on the synthesis and determination of the crystal structure of dicalcium phosphate monohydrate.

    • Bing-Qiang Lu
    • , Tom Willhammar
    •  & Denis Gebauer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electron spin is a fundamental property of molecules, and changes in spin state affect both molecular structure and dynamics. Here, the authors resolve, by ultrafast electron diffraction, the nuclear reorganization stabilizing spin transitions in a [FeII(bpy)3](PF6)2 crystal.

    • Yifeng Jiang
    • , Lai Chung Liu
    •  & R. J. Dwayne Miller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Elctrochemical water splitting is of vital significance for energy conversion and storage. Here the authors show an electrocatalyst based on amorphous ruthenium-tellurium porous nanorods which exhibit significantly improved OER performance than its crystalline counterparts

    • Juan Wang
    • , Lili Han
    •  & Xiaoqing Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Predictions of new solid-state Li-ion conductors are challenging due to the diverse chemistries and compositions involved. Here the authors combine unsupervised learning techniques and molecular dynamics simulations to discover new compounds with high Li-ion conductivity.

    • Ying Zhang
    • , Xingfeng He
    •  & Chen Ling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors report a near-infrared K3LuSi2O7:Eu2+ phosphor for non-visible light source application. The selective site occupation of Eu2+ in LuO6 and K2O6 polyhedrons is found to be responsible for the light emission and these insights could serve as design principles for discovery and design of such phosphors.

    • Jianwei Qiao
    • , Guojun Zhou
    •  & Zhiguo Xia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polynitrogen compounds are potentially promising high energy density materials, but are difficult to synthesize due to their instability. Here, the authors observe the formation, under high pressure, of a Mg2N4 magnesium–tetranitrogen salt which remains stable at ambient conditions.

    • Dominique Laniel
    • , Bjoern Winkler
    •  & Natalia Dubrovinskaia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetoelectric effect enables versatile electronic and spintronic devices. Here the authors demonstrate a different strategy to achieve magnetoelectric coupling in which the electric polarization is controlled by magnetic spin state transition instead of the traditional ferro- or antiferromagnetic order.

    • Shalinee Chikara
    • , Jie Gu
    •  & Vivien S. Zapf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Porous framework material DUT-49 was recently demonstrated to exhibit a unique counterintuitive negative gas adsorption (NGA) behaviour. Here the authors identify framework DUT-50 as an additional pressure amplifying material that features distinct NGA transitions, and suggest structural design criteria to access other such materials.

    • Simon Krause
    • , Jack D. Evans
    •  & Stefan Kaskel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cu-CeO2 has been considered as promising alternative to Cu-Zn-Al catalyst for water-gas shift (WGS) reaction, but it still suffers from low activity caused by Cu sintering. Here, the authors develop inverse CeO2/Cu catalyst with remarkable activity and stability in WGS via construction of stabilized bulk-nano interfaces.

    • Han Yan
    • , Chun Yang
    •  & Chun-Jiang Jia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Obtainment of hydrogen-rich metal hydrides that are high-temperature superconductors has been demonstrated under very high pressure, but is still largely unexplored. Here the authors synthesize CeH9, with a structure related to solid metallic hydrogen, at relatively low pressure and without need for heating.

    • Xin Li
    • , Xiaoli Huang
    •  & Tian Cui

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High pressure experiments may yield materials with unusual combinations of properties, but typically in small amounts and unstable. Here the authors synthesize millimeter-sized samples of metallic, ultraincompressible and very hard rhenium nitride pernitride, recoverable at ambient conditions.

    • Maxim Bykov
    • , Stella Chariton
    •  & Leonid Dubrovinsky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Beryllium in inorganic compounds is usually coordinated to four oxygen atoms, but higher coordination numbers have been predicted. Here the authors observe a pressure induced stepwise transition in CaBe2P2O8 where Be coordination changes to trigonal-bipyramidal and octahedral, implying that d orbitals are not mandatory for high coordination.

    • Anna Pakhomova
    • , Georgios Aprilis
    •  & Leonid Dubrovinsky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is a strong push to develop new catalysts and supports to convert low-value CO2 into high-value CH4. Here, authors found that the internal or external confinement of Ni on multi-layered siloxene supports determined the reaction pathway, activity, selectivity, and stability in CO2 methanation.

    • Xiaoliang Yan
    • , Wei Sun
    •  & Geoffrey A. Ozin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hydride ions are promising for energy storage since they are abundant, lightweight, and highly mobile, but ionic conductivity should be improved. Here the authors achieve fast hydride ion conductivity in a mixed-anion compound by tuning oxygen content.

    • Keiga Fukui
    • , Soshi Iimura
    •  & Hideo Hosono

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Developing innovative materials for reduced energy consumption in phosphor converted white light-emitting diodes remains a challenge. Here, the authors report a narrow band red-emitting oxonitride material with a highly symmetrical Sr2 + coordination for energy efficient white light-emitting diodes.

    • Gregor J. Hoerder
    • , Markus Seibald
    •  & Hubert Huppertz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The selective conversion of inexpensive precursors to high-value chemicals presents valuable academic and industrial consequences. Here, the authors show bismuth vanadate photoanodes to utilize light and photoelectrochemically oxidize glycerol selectively to valuable industrial products.

    • Dong Liu
    • , Jin-Cheng Liu
    •  & Bin Liu

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