Electronic properties and materials articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrically conductive composites are increasingly being studied for their favourable mechanical and electrical properties. Here, the authors employ a new synthetic strategy to attain fractal silver micro-dendrites which can be laser-scribed for implementation in flexible printed microelectronics.

    • Cheng Yang
    • , Xiaoya Cui
    •  & Ching-Ping Wong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The alignment of the bandgap of adjacent materials in a heterostructure largely determines the electronic properties of a device. Here, the authors measure the conduction and valance band offsets at the interface between two two-dimensional materials: molybdenum disulphide and tungsten diselenide.

    • Ming-Hui Chiu
    • , Chendong Zhang
    •  & Lain-Jong Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    At the ultrafast timescale the propagation of light pulses through a dielectric material is not only determined by the envelope, but also by nonlinear interactions that evolve within one optical cycle. Here, the authors demonstrate a method to determine the subcycle-resolved delay to a probe pulse in ultrafast, high-field pump–probe experiments.

    • Aseem Prakash Pati
    • , Imam Setiawan Wahyutama
    •  & Adrian Nikolaus Pfeiffer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Printable electronics is highly desirable for high throughput device manufacture. Here, Matsuhisa et al. report an electric ink, made of a self-assembled network of sliver flakes on the surface of a fluorine rubber matrix, which exhibits high conductivity and mechanical durability to achieve this goal.

    • Naoji Matsuhisa
    • , Martin Kaltenbrunner
    •  & Takao Someya

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The iridate compounds display interesting physical properties, including quasi-two-dimensional behaviour similar to cuprates. Bogdanov et al. explore the d-level structure of Sr2IrO4using electron spin resonance measurements and detailed calculations and find it is inverted compared to its normal ordering

    • Nikolay A. Bogdanov
    • , Vamshi M. Katukuri
    •  & Liviu Hozoi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chlorine incorporation into CH3NH3PbI3improves solar cell performance, but its optoelectronic role is still unclear. Here the authors present a strategy that decouples the morphological impact, to reveal that chlorine incorporation affects carrier transport across the heterojunction interface rather than within the perovskite crystal.

    • Qi Chen
    • , Huanping Zhou
    •  & Yang Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In BaFe2As2, the lattice couples strongly to the magnetic and electronic degrees of freedom, providing a way to control them. Here, by means of time-resolved X-ray scattering, the authors measure rapid lattice oscillations, which can induce changes in the material’s electronic and magnetic properties.

    • S. Gerber
    • , K. W. Kim
    •  & W.-S. Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Two-dimensional phases of electrons exhibit interesting phenomena under magnetic fields. Chepelianskii et al.show that electrons on liquid helium exhibit an incompressible state when they are excited by a microwave field at particular frequencies related with the Landau level spacing.

    • Alexei D. Chepelianskii
    • , Masamitsu Watanabe
    •  & Denis Konstantinov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hybrid halide perovskite solar cells are studied as easy to fabricate compounds for efficient solar cell devices. Here, the authors use density functional theory calculations to show that the orientation of the organic molecules in these materials is crucial for their electronic and solar conversion properties.

    • Carlo Motta
    • , Fedwa El-Mellouhi
    •  & Stefano Sanvito

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The spin dynamics at organic donor–acceptor junctions is critical in determining charge generation and recombination in devices, but the detail is still unclear. Here, Dimitrov et al. observe singlet–triplet spin mixing at nanosecond timescales, which competes directly with free charge separation.

    • Stoichko D. Dimitrov
    • , Scot Wheeler
    •  & James R. Durrant

  • Article |

    Boundary effects play a strong role in the electronic properties of structured manganites. Here, Du et al. demonstrate the existence of ferromagnetic metallic edge states and an enhanced metal–insulator transition temperature in patterned strips of manganite which emerge because of broken symmetry effects.

    • Kai Du
    • , Kai Zhang
    •  & Jian Shen

  • Article |

    Understanding and controlling the electronic band gap of a material is vital for many electronic and optoelectronic applications. Towards this aim, this study shows how huge band gap variations can arise by manipulating the electrostatic interactions via cation ordering in correlated oxide materials.

    • Prasanna V. Balachandran
    •  & James M. Rondinelli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cationic polyelectrolytes have a broad range of applications, including membranes for fuel cells. Here, the authors report a family of cationic polyelectrolytes based on the highly modular cyclopropenium ion building block, which show high ionic conductivity and tunable physical properties.

    • Yivan Jiang
    • , Jessica L. Freyer
    •  & Luis M. Campos

  • Article |

    The control of magnetization by an electric field can offer new magnetic data devices. Here, controlling magnetic phases in FeRh, the authors achieve a large electroresistance response in FeRh/PMN-PT heterostructures by applying an electric field, which could be used for non-volatile memory applications.

    • Yeonbae Lee
    • , Z. Q. Liu
    •  & R. Ramesh

  • Article |

    Stacking graphene in such a way that each layer is rotated relative to the one below provides a way of controlling the properties of this useful material. Park et al. now demonstrate a technique for fabricating this twisted graphene in such a way that it has an intrinsic electronic bandgap.

    • Jeongho Park
    • , William C. Mitchel
    •  & Jonghoon Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ultracold atoms in optical lattices are a versatile platform for modelling simplified physical systems. By tuning structural deformations in bipartite optical lattices, Di Liberto et al. induce superfluid-to-Mott-insulator phase transitions that may shed light on condensed-matter systems such as the cuprates.

    • M. Di Liberto
    • , T. Comparin
    •  & C. Morais Smith

  • Article |

    The integration of carbon nanotubes with silicon is important for their incorporation into next-generation nano-electronics. Here, the authors demonstrate a non-volatile switch that utilizes carbon nanotube networks to electrically contact a conductive nano-crystal silicon filament in silica.

    • Albert D. Liao
    • , Paulo T. Araujo
    •  & Mildred S. Dresselhaus

  • Article |

    In strongly correlated systems, the material properties can be drastically altered through subtle external perturbations. Here, the authors show that photoexcitation of the organic conductor α-(ET)2I3with ultrashort pulses leads to a counter-intuitive freezing of the electron motion.

    • Takahiro Ishikawa
    • , Yuto Sagae
    •  & Shinichiro Iwai

  • Article |

    The interface between LaAlO3 and SrTiO3 is host to exotic phenomena that can be controlled by light or electric fields. Lei et al. show that combining the two controls leads to a dramatic decrease, not increase, of carrier density at the heterointerface, beyond what can be done with only one of them.

    • Y. Lei
    • , Y. Li
    •  & J. R. Sun

  • Article |

    Femtosecond low-energy electron pulses allow probing ultrafast processes in nanoscale systems with high spatial and temporal resolution. Here, the authors develop a hybrid approach for studying ultrafast electric currents and structural dynamics in low-dimensional systems.

    • Melanie Müller
    • , Alexander Paarmann
    •  & Ralph Ernstorfer

  • Article |

    PbZr1−xTixO3is a widely used piezoelectric material. Here, the authors clarify the long-standing issue of the monoclinic crystal phase evolution across the morphotropic phase boundary in the compound’s phase diagram, contributing also to the understanding of its piezoelectric properties.

    • N. Zhang
    • , H. Yokota
    •  & Z.-G. Ye

  • Article |

    Molybdenum disulfide holds great potential for advanced flexible electronic devices. Here, using a transferred gate technique, the authors fabricate molybdenum disulfide-based transistors with optimized device geometry and contact, improving device speed and demonstrating gigahertz circuits with voltage gain.

    • Rui Cheng
    • , Shan Jiang
    •  & Xiangfeng Duan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Devices that generate single electrons are crucial for a precise definition of the ampere—the SI unit for electrical current. Yamahata et al. now demonstrate a silicon-based transistor that can accurately emit lone electrons at a rate of over 3 billion per second.

    • Gento Yamahata
    • , Katsuhiko Nishiguchi
    •  & Akira Fujiwara

  • Article |

    Spin–orbit coupling in graphene is small, which makes controlling spin currents in this otherwise useful spintronic material difficult. Avsar et al.now demonstrate that combining graphene with few-layer tungsten disulphide increases its spin–orbit coupling by three orders of magnitude

    • A. Avsar
    • , J. Y. Tan
    •  & B. Özyilmaz

  • Article |

    Short device lifetime of blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes currently prevents their use. Here, Zhang et al. prove that the triplet-polaron annihilation mechanism is responsible for the degraded blue emitters and show how this finding can be used to improve the device lifetime.

    • Yifan Zhang
    • , Jaesang Lee
    •  & Stephen R. Forrest

  • Article |

    The harvesting of electrical energy from renewable sources remains an ongoing scientific focus. Here, the authors report a triboelectric generator that is capable of harnessing energy from the wind via a flutter motion, with the output of the device dependent on the precise motion caused by the wind.

    • Jihyun Bae
    • , Jeongsu Lee
    •  & U-In Chung

  • Article |

    The selection of polymeric dielectric materials for energy storage applications is not trivial, as several criteria must be satisfied simultaneously. Here, Sharma et al.present a high-throughput hierarchical strategy using the band gap and dielectric constant to screen and identify good candidates.

    • Vinit Sharma
    • , Chenchen Wang
    •  & Rampi Ramprasad

  • Article |

    The ability to manipulate spin-polarized supercurrents could enable the development of superconducting spintronic devices whose performance exceeds that of conventional spintronics. Banerjee et al.demonstrate a superconducting analogue of the archetypical spintronic device, the spin valve.

    • N. Banerjee
    • , J.W.A. Robinson
    •  & M. G. Blamire

  • Article |

    Oxygen vacancies can significantly influence the electronic and structural properties of complex oxides. Here, the authors find that by controlling the concentration of oxygen vacancy defects in SrCrO3thin films, the crystal structure, oxygen diffusivity and electronic properties can be reversibly switched.

    • K. H. L. Zhang
    • , P. V. Sushko
    •  & S. A. Chambers

  • Article |

    Correlated oxide materials are of interest for solar cell applications that, in combination with properties such as magnetism, could offer novel functionalities. Here, the authors find that by applying strain or magnetic fields the photocurrent in La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 thin films can be significantly enhanced.

    • Z. G. Sheng
    • , M. Nakamura
    •  & M. Kawasaki

  • Article |

    The switching of ferroelectric domains can be used for applications such as information storage. Here, the authors demonstrate that a broad range of domain morphologies can be induced by the tip of a scanning probe microscope, which can be explained by the dynamics of surface charge screening.

    • Anton V. Ievlev
    • , Anna N. Morozovska
    •  & Sergei V. Kalinin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Most superconductors that exhibit exotic pairing symmetries are derived from host materials that are Mott insulators. Xiangang Wan and Sergey Savrasov show that it may be possible to realize an exotic p-wave superconductor in doped Bi2Se3, which is a topological band insulator.

    • Xiangang Wan
    •  & Sergey Y. Savrasov

  • Article |

    Crystal symmetries play an important role in the properties of materials, but allow little dynamic control once the materials have been grown. Here, the authors show that conducting oxides sandwiched between independently switchable ferroelectric films achieve tunable symmetry for controllable properties.

    • C. Becher
    • , M. Trassin
    •  & D. Meier

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