News & Views

A two-dimensional atomically flat insulator with large dielectric constant and high breakdown field strength has been successfully grown. This material could serve as the dielectric and encapsulation layers for two-dimensional materials for studying their emergent physics, as well as for next-generation electronics.

A bicontinuous conducting polymer hydrogel with high electrical conductivity, stretchability and fracture toughness in physiological environments achieves high-fidelity monitoring and effective stimulation of tissues and organs.

A safe, inhalable formulation of mucin-interacting hydrogel microparticles creates a dense protective network in the lungs against viral infections.

Controlling the twist angles between three α-phase molybdenum trioxide single layers enables the programmable and reconfigurable canalization of phonon polaritons along multiple in-plane directions.

A two-dimensional conjugated polymer is synthesized that demonstrates low electron effective masses and high mobility. These properties show that this material could act as a viable alternative to silicon-based semiconductors.

Current-inducing switching of magnetization is crucial for future magnetic data processing technologies, but switching it with speed and energy efficiency remains challenging. Using femtosecond optical pulses, instead of conventional charge currents, is found to make spintronics not only ultrafast but also counterintuitive.

Controlling the vapour transport mode with sustained release of precursor species allows for the growth of single-crystalline black phosphorus and black phosphorus–arsenic thin films on the millimetre scale.

The direct observation of enhanced dislocation mobility in iron by in situ electron microscopy offers key insights and adds to the ongoing debate on the mechanisms of hydrogen embrittlement.

Above-bandgap, nanosecond laser pulses enable the localized in situ writing of spin defects in prefabricated nanophotonic cavities. The approach preserves defect and cavity mode properties, key requirements towards cavity–emitter coupling in quantum networks.

An ultra-microporous metal–organic framework glass foam shows outstanding gas sieving properties for challenging gas mixtures.

A strategy of using a high ligand/metal ion concentration ratio eliminates lattice defects in polycrystalline zirconium metal–organic framework membranes, enhancing their molecular sieving performance.

A low-valence carbon-doped ruthenium oxide-based catalytic material achieved a catalytic trinity of superior activity, selectivity and stability during the conversion of carbon dioxide into methane at low temperatures.

In heavily hole-doped cuprates, superconductivity does not die by simply dissolving into a uniform metal due to the lack of pairing, but rather survives by shattering into nanoscale superconducting puddles.

Local vibrational modes at substitutional impurities in monolayer graphene are resolved with a sensitivity at the chemical bonding level, revealing the impacts of different chemical configurations and mass of impurity atoms on the defect-perturbed vibrational properties.

Antiferromagnetism has a vanishing total magnetization and thus is extremely challenging to manipulate. Now, circularly polarized light is shown to efficiently detect, induce and switch a unique class of antiferromagnets.

Locally confined epithelial malignancies undergo a phase transition from a solid-like to liquid-like state, a process called unjamming, where associated chronic intracellular strain causes nuclear envelope rupture, leading to the emergence of pro-metastatic traits due to cGAS–STING pathway activation.