News & Comment

Zhu-Jun Wang and Zhi Liu discuss how advanced characterization technologies have helped to understand ancient man-made materials and human history.

Zhi-Wei Shan, a professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University (School of Materials Science and Engineering), talks to Nature Materials about the non-negligible impact of trace impurities in metallic structural materials.

Experiments with entangled photons, which enabled the pioneering of quantum information science, have been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics.

A change in UK government must lead to changes in science policy.

Gang Qian from CITIC Pacific Special Steel, one of the major steelmakers in China, talks to Nature Materials about their experience and perspective on moving towards decarbonization.

Steel underpins modern society but its production generates intensive carbon dioxide emissions. For its sustainable development, the steel industry requires technology and product upgrades, driven by innovation and cooperation.

The steel industry in China has an important role in reducing national and global carbon emissions, demanding integrated actions and efforts across policies, industry and science to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality.

The success of silicon photonics is a product of two decades of innovations. This photonic platform is enabling novel research fields and novel applications ranging from remote sensing to ultrahigh-bandwidth communications. The future of silicon photonics depends on our ability to ensure scalability in bandwidth, size and power.

Organic semiconductors based on molecular or polymeric π-conjugated systems are now used at scale in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays and show real promise in thin-film photovoltaics and transistor structures. Here, we address recent progress in understanding and performance for OLEDs and for organic photovoltaics.

As Nature Materials turns 20 we look back at how materials science has evolved and consider future directions.

Metal–organic frameworks, porous coordination network materials constructed with metal ions and organic molecules, have grown over the past 20 years into an innovative chemistry that has contributed to solutions for the problems faced by humanity in the environment, resources, energy and health.

Soft matter has evolved considerably since it became recognized as a unified field. This has been driven by new experimental, numerical and theoretical methods to probe soft matter, and by new ways of formulating soft materials. These advances have driven a revolution in knowledge and expansion into biological and active matter.

Materials and surface sciences have been the driving force in the development of modern-day lithium-ion batteries. This Comment explores this journey while contemplating future challenges, such as interface engineering, sustainability and the importance of obtaining high-quality extensive datasets for enhancing data-driven research.

Semi-synthetic goldilocks material design integrates the tunable characteristics of synthetic materials and the refined complexity of natural components, enabling for the progress of biomaterials across length scales. Accelerated translational success may thus be possible for more personalized and accessible products.

Structural materials are critical components for our daily lives and industries. This Comment highlights the emerging concepts in structural materials over the past two decades, particularly the multi-principal element alloys, heterostructured materials and additive manufacturing that enables the fabrication of complex architectures.

Quantum materials show emergent electronic properties and related functions that are profoundly described by quantum mechanics beyond the semi-classical picture of electrons. Here, key developments and progress in the last two decades are surveyed and future challenges outlined.

Twentieth-century utopian visions of a space-age future have been eclipsed by dystopian fears of climate change and environmental degradation. Avoiding such grim forecasts depends on materials innovation and our ability to predict and plan not only their behaviour but also their sustainable manufacture, use and recyclability.

French science faces an uncertain future as the new government struggles with a fractured parliament.

Synthetic stimuli-responsive systems have become increasingly sophisticated and elegant at the nanoscale. This Comment discusses how rationally designed molecular systems capable of dynamic motions can be deployed in macroscopically porous metal–organic frameworks and respond to various stimuli.

Hui Deng, professor at the University of Michigan, talks to Nature Materials about the evolution of research in polariton physics over recent years and discusses the role of emerging materials in promoting a scenery full of challenges and possibilities.