Synthesis and processing articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is challenging to realize doping and surface passivation simultaneously in colloidal quantum dot inks. Here Choi et al. employ a cascade surface modification approach to solve the problem and obtain record high efficiency of 13.3% for bulk homojunction solar cells based on these inks.

    • Min-Jae Choi
    • , F. Pelayo García de Arquer
    •  & Edward. H. Sargent

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The synthesis of anisotropic nanoparticles with structural diversity and complexity in a rational and systematic fashion is rare. Here, the authors demonstrate a rational and stepwise synthetic strategy for nanoplates with a high degree of intricacy, leading to a gallery of shapes such as rings, triangles, hexagons, and tripods, with tailorable single or double frames.

    • Sungjae Yoo
    • , Jeongwon Kim
    •  & Sungho Park

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Assembly-Disassembly-Organization-Reassembly (ADOR) is a valuable method to prepare zeolites of predictable topologies, but has yet to be successfully applied on open framework zeolites. Here, the authors show that non-contact vapour-phase-transport rearrangement allows access to new zeolite topologies from open framework zeolites.

    • Valeryia Kasneryk
    • , Mariya Shamzhy
    •  & Maksym Opanasenko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanoscale biological assemblies play crucial roles in all living systems and display a variety of chemical functionalities. Here the authors show that it is possible to replicate some of the biochemical functions in similarly-sized assemblies made from inorganic nanoparticles.

    • Si Li
    • , Juan Liu
    •  & Nicholas A. Kotov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carbon nanotubes are considered promising materials for microelectronics, but it is challenging to separate semiconducting tubes from their metallic counterparts. Here, the authors report a self-purification growth process that allows them to obtain long, highly pure semiconducting carbon nanotubes.

    • Zhenxing Zhu
    • , Nan Wei
    •  & Fei Wei

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hydrogen isotope compounds are useful in fine chemical production, but the natural abundance of these gases is low and the techniques used for producing D2 are expensive and energy intensive. Here, the authors develop a nanocatalyst that promotes selective production of D2 and HD from the inexpensive starting material formic acid in the presence of D2O.

    • Kohsuke Mori
    • , Yuya Futamura
    •  & Hiromi Yamashita

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Versatile methods that can predictably assemble nanocrystals into large, well-ordered superlattices are rare. Here, the authors develop such a method–evaporation-driven poor-solvent enrichment–and rigorously determine the effect of various experimental parameters on the size, morphology, and mesoscopic order of the superlattices, giving the approach high predictive power.

    • Zhong-Peng Lv
    • , Martin Kapuscinski
    •  & Lennart Bergström

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Alloys are important materials for catalysis but are usually limited by miscibility gaps present in their phase diagrams. Here the authors break this limitation by developing high-entropy alloy catalysts made of five earth-abundant elements and demonstrate great catalytic enhancements for ammonia decomposition.

    • Pengfei Xie
    • , Yonggang Yao
    •  & Chao Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    ABA triblock copolymer self-assembly has been focussed on equilibrium nanostructures, while little is known on the guiding principles of nanostructure formation during non-equilibrium processing conditions. Here the authors show how to control ABA triblock copolymer hierarchical structures using solvent-non-solvent rapid-injection processing.

    • Chao Lang
    • , Jacob A. LaNasa
    •  & Robert J. Hickey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ability to control the internal domain structure of a nanocrystal represents a new direction in nanomaterials design. Here, the authors develop a method to controllably introduce twin boundaries in cuprous sulfide nanocrystals, and find that twinning stabilizes these nanocrystals in the superionic phase well below room temperature.

    • Jianxiao Gong
    •  & Prashant K. Jain

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite the potential of self-assembly strategies for fabricating 3D micro-electronic devices, technological limitations prohibit widespread industrial adoption. Here, the authors report the magnetic field-assisted Origami-based assembly of high-performance devices with high yield.

    • Felix Gabler
    • , Dmitriy D. Karnaushenko
    •  & Oliver G. Schmidt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The scalable synthesis of 2D materials critically relies on finding appropriate vapour-phase metal precursors and careful fine-tuning of growth parameters. Here, the authors instead use solid elemental precursors and a single recipe to demonstrate a general approach for synthesising thin epitaxial layers of 20 different 2D binary compounds, including transition metal sulphides, selenides, tellurides, and nitrides.

    • Abhay Shivayogimath
    • , Joachim Dahl Thomsen
    •  & Timothy J. Booth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Twinning is a powerful approach to engineering the physicochemical properties of metallic nanomaterials. Here, the authors discover unusual non-close-packed twinning planes in 4H-phase gold nanokites and show that they can be used as templates to grow 4H-phase twinned nanostructures of other noble metals.

    • Wenxin Niu
    • , Jiawei Liu
    •  & Hua Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    At elevated temperatures, bimetallic nanomaterials often change their composition and morphology due to the interdiffusion of atomic species, which can affect their properties. Here, the authors use in situ transmission electron microscopy to provide new insights into the Kirkendall effect and void motion in core-shell nanoparticles of Au and Pd.

    • See Wee Chee
    • , Zicong Marvin Wong
    •  & Utkur Mirsaidov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Food packaging industry is in search of non-toxic, stable, and recyclable coatings acting as gas-barriers. Here the authors synthesise transparent films meeting these requirements, based on high aspect ratio layered double hydroxide nanosheets obtained by exfoliation in aqueous amino acid solution.

    • Jingfang Yu
    • , Kanittika Ruengkajorn
    •  & Dermot O’Hare

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Layer-by-layer self-assembly method using small molecules holds promise to precisely combine atomically thin materials and enable fabrication of pillared structures with superior device performance. Here, the authors report controlled synthesis of supercapacitor electrodes based on 2D Ti3C2Tx MXene multilayers with a volumetric capacitance of 583 F/cm3.

    • Weiqian Tian
    • , Armin VahidMohammadi
    •  & Mahiar M. Hamedi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A scalable method for the growth of perovskite oxides thin films on silicon is desirable for integration of buffer layers in devices. Here the authors demonstrate the stoichiometric growth of thin SrTiO3 layers on silicon at high growth rates by hybrid molecular beam epitaxy.

    • Jason Lapano
    • , Matthew Brahlek
    •  & Roman Engel-Herbert

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Insufficient purification and incomplete characterization pose a serious problem for attributing photoluminescence properties to carbogenic nanodots, especially those synthesized by bottom-up approaches. Here, we provide a roadmap for the successful future of these nanodots.

    • Navneet C. Verma
    • , Aditya Yadav
    •  & Chayan K. Nandi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Inkfree multi-material printing is a common challenge in 3D printing. Here, the authors introduce electrohydrodynamic redox printing, a method that enables the deposition of multiple metals and their alloys with nanoscale resolution and thus the synthesis of materials with locally tuned properties.

    • Alain Reiser
    • , Marcus Lindén
    •  & Ralph Spolenak

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Printing functional inks is attractive for applications in electrochemical energy storage and smart electronics, among others. Here the authors report highly concentrated, additive-free, aqueous and organic MXene-based inks that can be used for high-resolution extrusion and inkjet printing.

    • Chuanfang (John) Zhang
    • , Lorcan McKeon
    •  & Valeria Nicolosi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    At nanoscale, it is synthetically very difficult to increase the structural complexity of hollow structures. Here, the authors use a stepwise liquid templating strategy to build, assemble, and interconnect fullerene hollow nanostructures, just like the synthetic freedom one could have with pottery.

    • Fei Han
    • , Ruoxu Wang
    •  & Hongyu Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Doping semiconductor nanocrystals with impurity atoms is a key pathway for tuning their plasmonic properties. Here, the authors use a cation exchange strategy to dope p-type or n-type metal ions into n-type metal-oxide nanocrystals, post-synthetically tailoring their localized surface plasmon resonances in the infrared region.

    • Zeke Liu
    • , Yaxu Zhong
    •  & Xingchen Ye

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) is an industrially compatible microelectronics technology. Here, the authors use PECVD to obtain low-temperature, catalyst-free growth of poly-crystalline two-dimensional hexagonal-boron nitride, thus enabling superior thermal dissipation in WSe2 field-effect transistors with mobility up to 121 cm2 V−1 s−1.

    • Donghua Liu
    • , Xiaosong Chen
    •  & Dacheng Wei

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sintering hexagonal boron nitride until it is more than 96% dense remains a challenge. Here, the authors mix cubic boron nitride particles into hexagonal boron nitride flakes and sinter the combined powders to obtain dense hexagonal boron nitride ceramics with significantly increased strength.

    • Haotian Yang
    • , Hailiang Fang
    •  & Jianlin Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ability to place perfectly aligned vertical nanowires at chosen positions on a silicon substrate is an important challenge in device fabrication. Here, the authors propose a mechanism to explain self-catalyzed III-V nanowire growth on silicon, providing valuable insights for growing high yield nanowire arrays.

    • J. Vukajlovic-Plestina
    • , W. Kim
    •  & A. Fontcuberta i Morral

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Epitaxial growth of the two-dimensionally thin material flakes with effective layer number and shape calls for precise control over temperature and carrier gas. Here, authors report controlled epitaxial growth of the second layer vertically for MoS2, WS2, MoWS and MoWSSe compounds by reverse hydrogen gas flow chemical vapor epitaxy.

    • Xiumei Zhang
    • , Haiyan Nan
    •  & Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) spontaneously organize into a helical arrangement but flexible CNC elastomer composite materials with this structure were so far not realized. Here the authors demonstrate the fabrication of a CNC based elastomer composite and its application as a photonic strain sensor.

    • Osamu Kose
    • , Andy Tran
    •  & Mark J. MacLachlan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Developing stable single-atom catalysts (SACs) with a high metal loading remains a challenge due to the difficulty of creating high densities of defects on support materials. Here the authors prepare Pt SACs with high Pt loadings by virtue of strong covalent metal-support interaction, rather than support defects.

    • Rui Lang
    • , Wei Xi
    •  & Tao Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solution-phase welding of nanoparticles to form larger structures typically requires that the particles are the same type, limiting the diversity of possible products. Here, the authors report a welding process between gold and chalcogenide nanoparticles in dispersion that leads to asymmetric hybrid nanoparticles with two distinct domains.

    • Zhiqi Huang
    • , Zhi-Jian Zhao
    •  & Zhihong Nie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Core/shell semiconductor nanocrystals have advantageous optoelectronic properties, which depend on the shell architecture. Here the authors show that by reducing the growth rate of ZnS shells on ZnSe nanorods the shell morphology can be tuned from flat to islands-like to helical

    • Botao Ji
    • , Yossef E. Panfil
    •  & Uri Banin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrochemical ion intercalation in 2D layered materials is known to occur through the material’s edges, accompanied by frequent structural deformations. Here the authors show that in MoS2 flakes where the edges have been sealed, a reversible and ion-selective intercalation occurs through the top surface via the intrinsic defects.

    • Jinsong Zhang
    • , Ankun Yang
    •  & Yi Cui

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While liquid-phase synthesis of 2D materials presents opportunities for large-scale production, achieving precise control over product quality, size and morphology remains challenging. Here, the authors show that hydrodynamic manipulation of nanoparticle assembly enables control over crystallinity, size and aspect ratio.

    • Nicholas A. Jose
    • , Hua Chun Zeng
    •  & Alexei A. Lapkin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Water based inks used for water-jet rewritable paper (WJRP) are an environmental friendly alternative to conventional printing, but black colour in WJRP could not be realized so far. Here the authors demonstrate black as well as other colour WJRP based on binary systems containing less-sensitive acidochromic dyes and mild proton donors.

    • Guan Xi
    • , Lan Sheng
    •  & Sean Xiao-An Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanographenes with zig-zag peripheries are expected to have unique electronic properties, but their application in organic electronics has been curbed by their difficult synthesis. Here, the authors develop a facile route to zig-zag nanographenes based on a key dehydrative π-extension reaction.

    • Dominik Lungerich
    • , Olena Papaianina
    •  & Konstantin Amsharov

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