Volume 20 Issue 10, October 2021

Amorphous silicon shows abnormal tension–compression asymmetry, with much higher tensile yield strength than compressive yield. This discovery advances our understanding of plasticity in this and other similar amorphous materials.

The non-collinear spin structure and nontrivial Berry curvature of Mn₃Ge give rise to a long-range supercurrent in superconductor–Mn₃Ge–superconductor lateral Josephson junctions.

Scanning tunnelling microscopy experiments reveal a chiral charge density wave order underpinning the anomalous Hall effect in kagome lattice materials. Under pressure this charge order is suppressed, while superconductivity gets a boost.

Through meticulous care for detail, researchers have now shattered the ceiling on thermoelectric performance, achieving a figure of merit above 3 for bulk SnSe polycrystalline powder.

Metallic behaviour from a two-dimensional hole gas has been observed in solution-processed organic crystals, giving hope for this state of matter to be used in next-generation large-area soft electronics.

A nanosensor probe that combines a tumour-targeting peptide, a diagnostic reporter and an imaging contrast agent enables early diagnosis, precision imaging, disease stratification and downstream therapeutic response monitoring of metastatic cancer.

An outlook on the potential of lead-halide perovskites as a playground for exciton-polariton studies and for the development of polaritonic devices operating at room temperature is provided.

Metal-halide and oxide perovskites are a rich playground for fundamental studies and applications. This Review focuses on the opportunities opened by reducing the dimensionality of these materials to two-dimensional monolayers.

This Review provides an outlook on current understanding of the role of strain on the performance and stability of perovskite solar cells, as well as on tools to characterize strain in halide perovskite films and on strain management strategies.

An intermediate cube phase with a medium-range order structure is identified in Pd-Ni-P metallic glass, which links the amorphous and crystalline phases.

An unconventional chiral charge order is observed in a kagome superconductor by scanning tunnelling microscopy. This charge order has unusual magnetic tunability and intertwines with electronic topology.

Long-range lateral Josephson supercurrents are observed in a chiral non-collinear antiferromagnet, indicating topologically generated triplet pairing states.

Current-induced rotation in epitaxial films of the non-collinear antiferromagnet Mn₃Sn is investigated.

Submicrometre-sized amorphous silicon samples show an unusually large tensile strength relative to the compressive strength, which is due to the reduced shear modulus and the activation energy barrier for shear transformations under compression.

SnSe has a very high thermoelectric figure of merit ZT, but uncommonly polycrystalline samples have higher lattice thermal conductivity than single crystals. Here, by controlling Sn reagent purity and removing SnO_x impurities, a lower thermal conductivity is achieved, enabling ZT of 3.1 at 783 K.

Replacing platinum with metal–nitrogen–carbon catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction in proton exchange membrane fuel cells has been impeded by low activity. These limitations have now been overcome by the trans-metalation of Zn–N₄ sites into Fe–N₄ sites.

Interfaces play crucial, but still poorly understood, roles in the performance of secondary solid-state batteries. Using crystallographically oriented and highly faceted thick cathodes, the impact of cathode crystallography and morphology on long-term performance is investigated.

A two-dimensional hole gas with high carrier density is confined at the interface between a solution-processed, single-crystalline organic semiconducting film and the electric double layer formed by an ion gel on top of the film.

Changes in dielectric constant due to intimate mixing of thiophene molecules with different gaps between ionization energy and electron affinity induce gap variations at the single-particle level, finely tunable by controlling the mixture ratio.

A model describing the behaviour of charge carriers in semiconducting polymers both in the hopping-like and metal-like regimes is developed, and used to quantify charge carrier localization and other transport parameters in organic semiconductors.

A computational platform describing the spatial and temporal interactions of monomers during the formation of network polymers provides structure–property relationships that are used to synthesize 3D network polymers with tailored functionalities.

Charged colloidal systems undergo fast crystallization under deep supercooling due to a coupled mechanism involving the discrete advancement of the crystal growth front and defect repair inside the recently formed solid phase.

Multimodal nanosensors have been developed to target and respond to hallmarks in the tumour microenvironment and provide both a non-invasive urinary monitoring tool and an on-demand positron emission tomography imaging agent to localize tumour metastasis and assess response to therapy.

Gabriele Rainò, Lukas Novotny and Martin Frimmer discuss the approach they are pursuing at ETH Zürich to provide students with an education in quantum engineering.