Condensed-matter physics articles within Nature Materials

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  • Letter |

    A common route to obtain efficient thermoelectrics is to optimize the ratio between electrical and thermal conductivity. Typically, materials with a complex, glass-like phonon structure and therefore a very low thermal conductivity are studied. Now, a route showing that solid ions in a liquid-like state can have a low enough thermal conductivity to compete with the best existing thermoelectrics is proposed.

    • Huili Liu
    • , Xun Shi
    •  & G. Jeffrey Snyder

  • Letter |

    Oxide materials show a versatile range of phenomena that in many cases can be controlled by growing thin films of oxides next to each other. The observation now that electrical conductance of domain walls in a ferroelectric can be tuned simply through the domain-wall orientation offers a flexible way of controlling functionality in complex oxides.

    • D. Meier
    • , J. Seidel
    •  & M. Fiebig

  • Letter |

    The slow decay of photoconductivity in amorphous oxide semiconductors hampers their use in photosensor arrays with viable frame rates. A gated sensor architecture now provides direct control over the Fermi-level position in the semiconductor layer, and eliminates persistent photoconductivity by accelerating electron recombination with ionized oxygen vacancy sites.

    • Sanghun Jeon
    • , Seung-Eon Ahn
    •  & Kinam Kim

  • News & Views |

    Results from a cubic heavy-fermion compound provide a new perspective on quantum criticality in these types of material.

    • Piers Coleman

  • Letter |

    The observation of a superconductive current flowing through a topological insulator is considered the first step towards the observation of the elusive Majorana fermions. This is now achieved in a superconductor/topological insulator/superconductor junction in which direct evidence of Josephson supercurrents is reported.

    • M. Veldhorst
    • , M. Snelder
    •  & A. Brinkman

  • Article |

    In most unconventional superconductors, the superconducting phase is adjacent to a phase with some type of magnetic order. However, this is not a universal feature. For example, no magnetic order has so far been observed in Sr2RuO4. Now, low-energy muon relaxation experiments show the presence of a static magnetic order for this material, suggesting that this feature may in fact be universal.

    • J. P. Carlo
    • , T. Goko
    •  & Y. J. Uemura

  • Article |

    Although (Ga,Mn)As is considered the model ferromagnetic semiconductor, the electronic structure of the charges — holes in this case — and its connection with the Curie temperature (TC) are still unclear. Experiments now provide a direct link between TC and the existence of an impurity band for the holes. Clarifying this issue is essential to designing other materials with potentially higher TC.

    • M. Dobrowolska
    • , K. Tivakornsasithorn
    •  & W. Walukiewicz

  • Article |

    It is well known that to reduce dissipation in a superconductor it is necessary to introduce artificial pinning centres, that is, small regions in which superconductivity is suppressed. This is usually achieved by introducing small regions of non-superconducting phases. A new concept of pinning centres, the local suppression of superconductivity induced by strain, is now demonstrated.

    • A. Llordés
    • , A. Palau
    •  & X. Obradors

  • Letter |

    Raman spectroscopy has already proved to be a powerful tool for studying the properties of single graphene layers. It is now shown that this technique can also provide information on the interaction between graphene sheets in multilayered graphene structures. In particular, a Raman peak corresponding to the interlayer shear mode, and probably linked to the interlayer coupling, is unveiled.

    • P. H. Tan
    • , W. P. Han
    •  & A. C. Ferrari

  • Article |

    Flexible electronics and other nanoscale devices require simple yet reliable assembly procedures. An optical welding technique for metal nanowires, based on surface plasmon resonances, is now used to fabricate interconnected nanowire networks with enhanced electrical properties for use as transparent electrodes in solar cells and other electrical devices.

    • Erik C. Garnett
    • , Wenshan Cai
    •  & Mark L. Brongersma

  • Letter |

    Lumped elements such as resistors, capacitors and inductors play a crucial role in electronic circuits. Now, inspired by metamaterials technology, the experimental realization of lumped circuit elements for optical frequencies provides a standardized platform for applications such as mixing and multiplexing of optical signals.

    • Yong Sun
    • , Brian Edwards
    •  & Nader Engheta

  • Review Article |

    From magnetism, ferroelectricity and superconductivity to electrical and thermal properties, oxides show a broad range of phenomena of fundamental as well as practical relevance. Reviewed here are the emergent phenomena arising at the interface between oxide materials, which have attracted considerable interest based on advances in thin-film deposition techniques.

    • H. Y. Hwang
    • , Y. Iwasa
    •  & Y. Tokura

  • Editorial |

    Oxide materials show an amazing variety of electronic and ionic phenomena. However, despite considerable advances in understanding and utilizing these effects, experimental and theoretical challenges still need to be addressed before the promised applications can be realized.

  • News & Views |

    For colloidal particles adsorbed at liquid/liquid interfaces, it is now found that the height of a particle above the interface equilibrates much more slowly than expected. Such a slow relaxation has major implications for the understanding of effective interactions between colloids at fluid interfaces.

    • Ignacio Pagonabarraga

  • Commentary |

    Interfaces formed by transition-metal oxide materials offer a tremendous opportunity for fundamental as well as applied research. Yet, as exciting as these opportunities are, several challenges remain.

    • J. Chakhalian
    • , A. J. Millis
    •  & J. Rondinelli

  • Letter |

    Interfaces between insulating oxides have revealed exotic electronic and magnetic properties. It is now shown that a complex magnetic structure can emerge in an oxide superlattice, and that specific interfaces can unexpectedly exhibit exchange bias. The observations reveal the induction of antiferromagnetism in a material that is usually paramagnetic.

    • Marta Gibert
    • , Pavlo Zubko
    •  & Jean-Marc Triscone

  • Letter |

    It is demonstrated that graphene coatings do not alter the wetting behaviour of copper, gold or silicon surfaces. Such wetting transparency—shown to occur only for surfaces where surface–water interactions are dominated by van der Waals forces—and graphene’s ability to suppress copper oxidation result in a 30–40% increase in condensation heat transfer on copper. The findings have implications for graphene-based coatings with independently tunable electronic and wetting properties.

    • Javad Rafiee
    • , Xi Mi
    •  & Nikhil A. Koratkar

  • Letter |

    A quantum critical point occurs when different stable phases of matter are in equilibrium at absolute zero temperature. Describing quantum criticality with a theoretical framework that unifies different types of transitions is highly desirable to understand how phenomena such as superconductivity and magnetism interact in correlated electron systems. A study now provides an indication of an underlying universality of quantum criticality, and highlights the role of dimensionality in such a unified theory.

    • J. Custers
    • , K-A. Lorenzer
    •  & S. Paschen

  • News & Views |

    Electric-field-induced toggle switching of nanoscale thin-film magnets signifies an important step towards energy-efficient magnetic data storage.

    • Evgeny Y. Tsymbal

  • Article |

    Electrochemical oxidation of metals produces anodic oxides with highly regular arrangements of pores; however, the mechanisms of pore initiation and self-ordering are not well understood. Now, a quantitative analysis method is proposed that examines the roles of oxide dissolution and ionic conduction in the morphological stability of anodic oxide films.

    • Kurt R. Hebert
    • , Sergiu P. Albu
    •  & Patrik Schmuki

  • Article |

    The coherence lifetime of a material system to be used in quantum information protocols has to be long enough for several quantum operations to occur before the system loses its quantum coherence. The spins of impurities in silicon have been shown to have coherence lifetimes up to tens of milliseconds, but now all records are beaten with those in high-purity silicon reaching a few seconds.

    • Alexei M. Tyryshkin
    • , Shinichi Tojo
    •  & S. A. Lyon

  • Letter |

    Colloidal particles adsorbed at liquid interfaces are commonly assumed to be at equilibrium, but holographic microscopy experiments now reveal that microspheres bound to a water/oil interface may take months to equilibrate. The observed ageing dynamics agree with a model of thermally activated hopping of the particle/interface contact line over nanoscale surface defects, and have implications for understanding the interactions between adsorbed colloidal particles.

    • David M. Kaz
    • , Ryan McGorty
    •  & Vinothan N. Manoharan

  • Article |

    The relay mechanism in which hydrogen atom transfer occurs along hydrogen bonds plays a crucial role in many functional compounds. Using a scanning tunnelling microscope, the transfer of hydrogen atoms along hydrogen-bonded chains assembled on a Cu(110) surface is shown to be controllable and reversible.

    • T. Kumagai
    • , A. Shiotari
    •  & H. Ueba

  • News & Views |

    The synthesis of a family of plate-like semiconductor nanocrystals yields solutions of small quantum wells with excellent optical properties.

    • Gregory D. Scholes

  • News & Views |

    The search for the metallic state of hydrogen at ever higher static pressures has normally required experiments to be performed at temperatures near 100 K. Now, some 30 years after the first attempts at room-temperature compression, the observation of reflective dense hydrogen promises to bring it in from the cold.

    • Andrew P. Jephcoat

  • News & Views |

    Elastic thin films attached to a foundation under compression develop wrinkles, which in turn can generate invaginated folds. Hierarchical patterns of localized folds have now been observed in thin films under biaxial compression, which show intriguing resemblance to fracture patterns in drying pastes and to venation networks in leaves.

    • Pedro M. Reis

  • Article |

    The possibility of controlling magnetization by spin-polarized current could lead to devices more energy-efficient than traditional ones using external magnetic fields. Now, an even more efficient method has been demonstrated by using electric-field pulses to switch the magnetization in a CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnelling junction.

    • Wei-Gang Wang
    • , Mingen Li
    •  & C. L. Chien

  • Letter |

    Molecular hydrogen is expected to display metallic properties under high pressures, but so far experiments performed at low temperatures ( 100 K) have showed that hydrogen remains insulating up to 300 GPa. A transformation of normal molecular hydrogen to a conductive and metallic state at room temperature is now observed above 220 GPa.

    • M. I. Eremets
    •  & I. A. Troyan

  • Article |

    Metal oxides can exchange charges with a wide variety of adsorbed organic molecules, which renders them useful in electronics and catalysis. A study on oxides with a range of electronic properties now shows that energy alignment at metal oxide/organic interfaces is universally governed by electron-chemical-potential equilibration.

    • Mark T. Greiner
    • , Michael G. Helander
    •  & Zheng-Hong Lu

  • Research Highlights |

    • Christian Martin

  • Article |

    The close relationship between crystal structure and electric polarization in ferroelectrics means that strain strongly influences their properties. The demonstration of how strain gradients leading to a higher-order effect, flexoelectricity, can be used to rotate electric polarization in thin films indicates new ways of controlling piezoelectricity by purely mechanical means.

    • G. Catalan
    • , A. Lubk
    •  & B. Noheda

  • Letter |

    Conjugated polymers are applied widely in organic optoelectronic devices. The performance of these devices depends critically on polymer morphology, which can be modified by solvent vapour annealing. This process has now been controlled on mesoscopic length scales, bridging the gap between single-molecule and bulk studies, and revealing long-range energy transport in ordered polymer aggregates.

    • Jan Vogelsang
    • , Takuji Adachi
    •  & Paul F. Barbara

  • Letter |

    The electrical control of magnetic properties is a key requirement for the development of spintronic devices. The demonstration that the ferromagnetic phase transition in cobalt can be changed by applying an electric field at room temperature represents a significant step towards devices that can switch magnetism on and off electrically.

    • D. Chiba
    • , S. Fukami
    •  & T. Ono

  • Article |

    Activation of molecular hydrogen is an important step for many applications such as fuel cells and ammonia synthesis, but has so far required high temperatures and expensive noble-metal catalysts. Aluminium doped with small amounts of titanium is now shown to activate molecular hydrogen at temperatures as low as 90 K.

    • Irinder S. Chopra
    • , Santanu Chaudhuri
    •  & Yves J. Chabal

  • Letter |

    Self-assembled monolayers of thiols have applications ranging from surface coatings to nanomechanical sensors, where they transmit analyte-induced stress to a cantilever detector. For gold nanocrystals it is now shown that the adsorption of propanethiol alone can induce large chemical stress, with different directionality on curved and flat surfaces.

    • Moyu Watari
    • , Rachel A. McKendry
    •  & Ian K. Robinson

  • News & Views |

    Crystalline ice surfaces are found to exhibit an unusually large spread of vacancy formation energies, akin to an amorphous material. The finding has implications for the fundamental understanding of electrostatically frustrated surfaces and for the reactivity and catalytic properties of atmospheric ice.

    • Lars Ojamäe

  • News & Views |

    The electronic structure in the bulk of a crystal can be unveiled by hard X-ray angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy.

    • Dong-Lai Feng

  • Letter |

    Josephson junctions have been intensely studied from a fundamental and technological point of view. It is now shown how by using ferromagnetic insulators for the barrier it is possible to strongly affect the superconducting current and in particular its magnetic and spin properties.

    • Kartik Senapati
    • , Mark G. Blamire
    •  & Zoe H. Barber

  • Letter |

    Crystallization of a liquid usually starts at a solid surface — for instance, that of impurities or of a container's walls — and surface roughness is known to enhance crystal nucleation rates. It is now shown with polymer films patterned with spherical nanopores 15–120 nm in size that the shape of the pores can either enhance or hinder crystal nucleation.

    • Ying Diao
    • , Takuya Harada
    •  & Bernhardt L. Trout

  • Article |

    First-principles calculations show that water molecules at the surface of crystalline ice have high variability in their binding energies. Such an amorphous character of a crystalline surface is unusual, and for ice it is a result of electrostatic frustration and the relaxation of geometric constraints. The findings have consequences for ice catalysis, surface pre-melting and growth.

    • M. Watkins
    • , D. Pan
    •  & B. Slater

  • Letter |

    The interaction between electron and nuclear spins in quantum dots is often seen as detrimental for the use of electron spin for quantum information processing. It is now shown, however, that such interaction can be used to coherently control the polarization of tens of thousands of nuclear spins, opening the way to experiments using nuclear rather than electron spin.

    • M. N. Makhonin
    • , K. V. Kavokin
    •  & A. I. Tartakovskii

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