Condensed-matter physics articles within Nature Materials

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  • Interview |

    Nitin Samarth has extensive experience in studying the properties of (Ga,Mn)As. He told Nature Materials about the role that this compound has had in exploring the magnetic properties of semiconductors and, more generally, of spin-related phenomena.

    • Fabio Pulizzi

  • Commentary |

    Despite low transition temperatures, ferromagnetism in diluted magnetic semiconductors has been essential in exploring new ideas and concepts in spintronics, some of which have been successfully transferred to metallic ferromagnets.

    • Hideo Ohno

  • Interview |

    Scott Chambers has worked on epitaxial oxide films for the past eighteen years. Nature Materials asked him about his view on high-temperature ferromagnetism in diluted magnetic oxides.

    • Fabio Pulizzi

  • News & Views |

    The latest advances in our understanding of correlated electron systems have implications that range from fundamental physics such as string theory to novel applications including the manipulation and retrieval of electron spin.

    • Leon Balents
    •  & Zhi-Xun Shen

  • News & Views |

    Comb-shaped nanostrips pave the way for a fourfold velocity increase in the propagation of magnetic domain walls.

    • Geoffrey Beach

  • Review Article |

    In 2000, a seminal study predicted ferromagnetism above room temperature in diluted magnetic semiconductors and oxides, fuelling tremendous research activity that has lasted for a decade. Tomasz Dietl reviews the progress in understanding these materials over the past ten years, with a view to the future of semiconductor spintronics.

    • Tomasz Dietl

  • Letter |

    Magnons are collective excitations of spins in a material, and just like individual electron spins, they could form the basis for novel computing concepts. Now, determination of the almost loss-less electrical switching of magnons at room temperature takes us a step closer to such ‘magnonic’ devices.

    • P. Rovillain
    • , R. de Sousa
    •  & M. Cazayous

  • Letter |

    The surface-directed mineralization of calcium phosphate from simulated body fluid is studied by cryogenic transmission electron microscopy. Prenucleation clusters aggregate close to the surface, then amorphous calcium phosphate forms in this region, leading to the nucleation of oriented apatite crystals at the surface.

    • Archan Dey
    • , Paul H. H. Bomans
    •  & Nico A. J. M. Sommerdijk

  • Article |

    Strain-induced damage typically limits the bending radius of electronic circuits to a few millimetres. The development of very thin organic transistors and electronic circuit designs that show a bending radius down to 100 μm will enable novel applications with unconventional form factors.

    • Tsuyoshi Sekitani
    • , Ute Zschieschang
    •  & Takao Someya

  • Letter |

    A spin-polarized current induces a spin torque on the magnetization of a ferromagnetic film, which according to theory leads to spin-wave emissions. These spin waves have now been observed with a mapping technique that shows a highly directional emission. The results are of key importance to understanding the physics of spin waves and their possible use in spintronic devices.

    • Vladislav E. Demidov
    • , Sergei Urazhdin
    •  & Sergej O. Demokritov

  • News & Views |

    Biocompatible light-emitting structures based on high-performance inorganic compound semiconductors on flexible substrates open the path to futuristic therapeutic devices, instrumented surgical gloves and many other applications.

    • Takao Someya

  • News & Views |

    Excitons in a highly ordered organic semiconductor are found to diffuse over distances of a few micrometres. This may pave the way towards designing efficient excitonic solar cells.

    • Carlos Silva

  • News & Views |

    Propelled by the recent renaissance of oxides, a material has emerged with sufficient purity and perfection to join those select materials that show the fractional quantum Hall effect: ZnO.

    • Darrell G. Schlom
    •  & Loren N. Pfeiffer

  • Letter |

    The fabrication of oxide thin-film heterostructures has improved considerably over the past few years. The first demonstration of the fractional quantum Hall effect in an oxide now attests to the potential of these compounds to rival conventional semiconductors.

    • A. Tsukazaki
    • , S. Akasaka
    •  & M. Kawasaki

  • Article |

    Flexible electronic devices that can be stretched without losing performance have seen increasing functionality. In particular, the demonstration of light-emitting diodes and photodetectors on flexible electronic substrates now opens the door to applications of flexible optoelectronic sheets in biomedicine and robotics.

    • Rak-Hwan Kim
    • , Dae-Hyeong Kim
    •  & John A. Rogers

  • Article |

    Hydrophobic surfaces composed of an asymmetric array of polymer nanorods show unidirectional wetting behaviour relative to the orientation of the tilted nanorods. The surfaces, which are smooth on the microscale, can transport water droplets of microlitre capacity by a ratcheting mechanism resulting from the pillared substrate.

    • Niranjan A. Malvadkar
    • , Matthew J. Hancock
    •  & Melik C. Demirel

  • Article |

    Excitons in polycrystalline films of organic semiconductors typically migrate distances of the order of tens of nanometres. Photoconductivity measurements in highly ordered rubrene now show that exciton diffusion can reach the micrometre range, opening a route to designing excitonic circuitry for applications in photocatalysis, photochemical sensing or photovoltaic energy conversion.

    • H. Najafov
    • , B. Lee
    •  & V. Podzorov

  • Letter |

    Domain walls in magnetic nanostructures could be used in information storage devices. The speed at which these domain walls can move when a magnetic field is applied has always been found to have a maximum. It is now shown that this can be increased by proper design of the magnetic structures, opening the way to faster and more reliable devices.

    • E. R. Lewis
    • , D. Petit
    •  & R. P. Cowburn

  • News & Views |

    Experiments on magnetic insulators and semiconductors imply that the spin Seebeck effect is conceptually different from the standard thermoelectric effect, launching new challenges for both theorists and experimentalists in spintronics.

    • Jairo Sinova

  • Letter |

    By using the spin Seebeck effect, the generation of an electric voltage from a heat gradient is demonstrated for the first time in an insulator. This finding extends the range of potential materials for thermoelectric applications, and provides a crucial piece of information for understanding the physics of the spin Seebeck effect.

    • K. Uchida
    • , J. Xiao
    •  & E. Saitoh

  • Letter |

    The generation of an electric voltage from a heat gradient is demonstrated for the first time in the ferromagnetic semiconductor GaMnAs. This allows flexible design of the magnetization directions, a large spin polarization, and measurements across the magnetic phase transition. The effect is observed even in the absence of longitudinal charge transport.

    • C. M. Jaworski
    • , J. Yang
    •  & R. C. Myers

  • Article |

    In situ spectroscopic analysis of operating solid oxide electrochemical cells has proved to be difficult owing to high-vacuum requirements. Ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy on single-chamber cells now suggests that surface reaction kinetics and electron transport on the electrodes are co-limiting processes.

    • Chunjuan Zhang
    • , Michael E. Grass
    •  & Bryan W. Eichhorn

  • News & Views |

    The discovery of a highly resistive ferrite magnet where a low magnetic field induces a ferroelectric polarization at room temperature is a key advance towards applications of magnetoelectric coupling.

    • Craig J. Fennie
    •  & Darrell G. Schlom

  • Article |

    Typically, electronic contributions have a very small effect on infrared absorption in solids. Now, however, a giant-infrared-absorption band of electronic origin has been observed in reduced graphene oxide. The band arises from the coupling of electronic states to the asymmetric stretch mode of a yet-unreported structure, consisting of oxygen atoms aggregated at edges of defects.

    • M. Acik
    • , G. Lee
    •  & Y. J. Chabal

  • Article |

    Flexible organic electronics could eventually be used to create electronic skin. Films of a pressure-sensitive microstructured elastomer are now used as the dielectric layer in organic field-effect transistors to create highly sensitive devices. The elastomer is also used in a matrix pressure sensor that can detect loads in numerous positions.

    • Stefan C. B. Mannsfeld
    • , Benjamin C-K. Tee
    •  & Zhenan Bao

  • Letter |

    Flexible electronic devices should lead to new practical applications. Parallel arrays of inorganic nanowires have now been integrated into a flexible pressure-sensor array on a macroscopic scale. The sensor array operates at low voltage and acts as an artificial electronic skin, sensing pressure profiles with high spatial resolution.

    • Kuniharu Takei
    • , Toshitake Takahashi
    •  & Ali Javey

  • Article |

    The selective reaction of one part of a bifunctional molecule is a fundamental challenge in heterogeneous catalysis. Modifying a supported palladium catalyst with alkanethiol self-assembled monolayers is now shown to increase selectivity for the hydrogenation of 1-epoxy-3-butane to 1-epoxybutane.

    • Stephen T. Marshall
    • , Marykate O’Brien
    •  & J. William Medlin

  • News & Views |

    A conventional material used in magnetic tunnel junctions with in-plane magnetization can also be magnetized perpendicularly, offering new possibilities for high-performance memory and logic circuits.

    • Andrew D. Kent

  • News & Views |

    Combining optical spectroscopy and transport measurements illuminates the conduction mechanism in high-quality, polycrystalline films.

    • Douglas Natelson

  • News & Views |

    A magnetically colour-tunable material is used to create colour-coded microparticles that can be manipulated using magnetic fields and are suitable for use in multiplex bioassays.

    • Kevin Braeckmans
    •  & Stefaan C. De Smedt

  • News & Views |

    A liquid/air interface provides an effective platform for organizing thin molecular layers that can be transferred to solid surfaces. It is now shown that liquid-interface assembly is effective for generating extensive membranes of binary nanocrystal superlattices.

    • Brian A. Korgel

  • Letter |

    Measuring charge transport on the surface of an organic semiconductor crystal in field-effect transistors is difficult. Now solution-processed thin films have been used in a field-effect transistor allowing spectroscopic characterization of the carrier over a large temperature range. The measurements provide information on the nonlinear transport properties observed at low temperatures.

    • Tomo Sakanoue
    •  & Henning Sirringhaus

  • Letter |

    Biochemical assays that use magnetic beads are at present in frequent use. Colour-barcoded magnetic microparticles have now been created without using multiple pigmentations. The coding capacity far exceeds that of alternative spectral encoding systems and is demonstrated in a practical bioassay for DNA detection and identification.

    • Howon Lee
    • , Junhoi Kim
    •  & Sunghoon Kwon

  • Letter |

    Graphene films are usually made from domains with different orientations. How does this affect transport? A theory of charge transmission through graphene grain boundaries now predicts two distinct transport behaviours depending on the grain-boundary structure. The results could provide important information for the design of efficient graphene-based electronic devices.

    • Oleg V. Yazyev
    •  & Steven G. Louie

  • Letter |

    Only few magnetoelectric materials, where magnetism and ferroelectricity are coupled, are known to exist at room temperature, and in most cases the magnetoelectric coupling is weak. The discovery of strong room-temperature magnetoelectric coupling in Sr3Co2Fe24O41 at low magnetic fields is therefore a significant advance towards the practical application of multiferroics.

    • Yutaro Kitagawa
    • , Yuji Hiraoka
    •  & Tsuyoshi Kimura

  • Letter |

    Terahertz emitters, such as quantum cascade lasers (QCLs), are of interest for applications in imaging and sensing. Nevertheless, performance problems such as power out-coupling efficiency have limited their technological potential. However, a study now shows that subwavelength surface patterning of terahertz QCLs leads to significantly enhanced beam collimation and power collection efficiency.

    • Nanfang Yu
    • , Qi Jie Wang
    •  & Federico Capasso

  • News & Views |

    A new material designed from first principles and subsequently synthesized and characterized in the laboratory may shed light on why there is much more matter than antimatter in the Universe.

    • Dmitry Budker

  • News & Views |

    Aluminium is regarded as a simple system in which to test for phenomena occurring at high pressure. Ab initio calculations now show that this metal undergoes a surprising transition to an incommensurate structure when it is subjected to extremely high pressures.

    • Malcolm I. McMahon
    •  & Graeme J. Ackland

  • News & Views |

    The versatility and potential of conjugated organic materials continues to amaze, with their unique — and sometimes unexpected — properties being continuously discovered and harnessed by scientists in an attempt to use them in functional devices.

    • Vitaly Podzorov

  • Article |

    The detailed mechanism of the pH-dependent quenching of semiconductor quantum-dot/dopamine conjugates, confirming quinone as the electron acceptor in the process, is now reported. This electrochemical knowledge of the bioconjugate system is used for the in vitro detection of drug-induced intracellular pH changes.

    • Igor L. Medintz
    • , Michael H. Stewart
    •  & Hedi Mattoussi

  • Article |

    The conversion of solar energy into electricity usually occurs either electrically or through thermal conversion. A new mechanism, photon-enhanced thermionic emission, which combines electric as well as thermal conversion mechanisms, is now shown to lead to enhanced conversion efficiencies that potentially could even exceed the theoretical limits of conventional photovoltaic cells.

    • Jared W. Schwede
    • , Igor Bargatin
    •  & Nicholas A. Melosh

  • Letter |

    In magnetoelectric compounds, magnetism and ferroelectricity are coupled. The observation of light-induced size changes in the room-temperature magnetoelectric BiFeO3 now adds optical functionality to magnetoelectric devices that may lead to new applications arising from the coupling of light, electric and magnetic fields.

    • B. Kundys
    • , M. Viret
    •  & D. O. Kundys

  • Article |

    The control of magnetization by electric fields is important for applications in data storage and sensing. An efficient control of exchange bias by electric fields has now been achieved in thin-film devices in which a ferroelectric antiferromagnet is coupled to a ferromagnet.

    • S. M. Wu
    • , Shane A. Cybart
    •  & R. C. Dynes

  • Letter |

    Although density functional theory is widely used in surface science, it has a tendency to predict surfaces to be more stable than they actually are experimentally. Using a many-electron approach such as the random-phase approximation enables accurate surface and adsorption energies for carbon monoxide and benzene on metal surfaces to be determined.

    • L. Schimka
    • , J. Harl
    •  & G. Kresse

  • Letter |

    An important component of spintronics devices is the magnetic electrode, which is usually made from an inorganic alloy. However, an organic-based spin polarizer is now demonstrated, opening new possibilities for developing organic/inorganic hybrid spintronics devices.

    • Jung-Woo Yoo
    • , Chia-Yi Chen
    •  & A. J. Epstein

  • Letter |

    Regardless of what the origin of superconductivity is in the recently discovered iron-based superconductor, it would be useful to know how good these materials are for applications. Sophisticated experiments now show that SmFeAs0.75F0.25 exhibits a high and nearly isotropic critical current, a potentially important result for their use in applications.

    • Philip J. W. Moll
    • , Roman Puzniak
    •  & Bertram Batlogg

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