Superionic materials are of interest for solid-state batteries or thermoelectrics, yet a clear understanding of the atomistic mechanisms is lacking. Here it is shown that transverse acoustic phonons persist above the superionic transition in argyrodite Ag₈SnSe₆, and that the free-Se sublattice controls fast Ag cation diffusion.

Membranes formed from porous adsorbents can improve the economics of industrially difficult separations but require support materials that reduce gas permeance. Here an amorphous glassy foam membrane without a support is formed from ZIF-62 that shows high selectivity and permeance for CH₄/N₂ separations.

The discovery of ferroelectric switching in ultrathin layers of hafnium dioxide has aroused significant interest for low-power non-volatile memory technologies. This Perspective discusses how lessons learned from hafnium dioxide-based ferroelectrics can be applied to other applications, and other binary oxides.

Nanoscale ferroelectric topological solitons, such as polar bubbles, polar bubble skyrmions and hopfions, have garnered immense interest due to their emergent properties. This Perspective discusses how these structures form, advances in their study and how they can enable new devices and physics.

Piezoelectric actuators play a critical role in precision positioning devices; however, materials with high actuation strain and mechanical energy density are rare. Here a composite of poly(vinylidene fluoride) and TiO₂ demonstrates superior performance in these metrics, with the ferroelectric transition driven by Joule heating.

Combining a tungsten disulfide monolayer and a topologically protected bound state in the continuum formed by a one-dimensional photonic crystal, strong light–matter interaction enhancement and large exciton–polariton nonlinearities at room temperature are demonstrated.

Photopolymerizable hydrogels enable optical clearance and high homogeneous expansion for high-resolution optical imaging of cells embedded within degradable hydrogels.

Detailed structures of both solvated corona chains and sub-nanometre crystalline core lattice of polymer-based nanofibres in solution are obtained using high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy.

Superionic materials are of interest for solid-state batteries or thermoelectrics, yet a clear understanding of the atomistic mechanisms is lacking. Here it is shown that transverse acoustic phonons persist above the superionic transition in argyrodite Ag₈SnSe₆, and that the free-Se sublattice controls fast Ag cation diffusion.

The authors report subatomic precision in measuring the displacement of a nanowire. Such precision is achieved by employing deep-learning enabled analysis of single-shot scattering of topologically structured superoscillatory illumination.

Ferroelectrics have already impacted scientific research and commercial applications, but they still show plenty of potential to surprise.

Increasing chemical complexity expands the design space and drives the coupling of materials science and computational techniques.

A measure of the impact of scientific papers indicates that they are on average becoming less disruptive — this could reflect changes in the scientific community.

Click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry have finally been recognized with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The hunt for a quantum spin liquid continues with new materials and more refined methods leading the way.