Electronic properties and materials articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article |

    In piezoelectric materials, mechanical strain and electrical polarization are interlinked. Here, the authors find piezoelectricity in carbon nitride nanosheets, arising from the presence of holes in the two-dimensional sheets.

    • Matthew Zelisko
    • , Yuranan Hanlumyuang
    •  & Pradeep Sharma

  • Article |

    There is strong interest in carbon nanotube assemblies for a variety of applications, many of which require combined high mechanical and electrical properties. Here, the authors demonstrate a rolling technique for performance improvement, reporting tensile strength of 4.34 GPa, ductility of 10% and electrical conductivity of 2.0 × 104 S cm−1.

    • J. N. Wang
    • , X. G. Luo
    •  & Y. Chen

  • Article |

    Nanoscale metal inclusions play an important role in solid-state dielectric devices. Here, the authors demonstrate that these inclusions can change their shape, size and position in response to an applied electric field, and that electrochemical processes can lead to metal cluster nucleation and growth.

    • Yuchao Yang
    • , Peng Gao
    •  & Wei D. Lu

  • Article |

    Control of magnetism by an electric field is of interest for applications such as information storage. Here, the authors achieve this magnetoelectric coupling in a non-superconducting cuprate, sandwiched between two ferromagnetic manganese oxide layers, whose magnetization can be switched with the sole action of an electric field.

    • F. A. Cuellar
    • , Y. H. Liu
    •  & J. Santamaria

  • Article |

    Polyelectrolyte gel diodes rectify ion currents in electrolyte solutions and the rectification mechanism is believed to be similar to that of conventional semiconductor p–n diodes. Here, Yamamoto and Doi predict a very different mechanism, which is attributable to their electrochemical nature.

    • Tetsuya Yamamoto
    •  & Masao Doi

  • Article |

    Graphite is a common anode material for lithium-ion batteries, but small interlayer spacing makes it unsuitable for sodium-ion batteries. Here, Wen et al.synthesize a graphite material with expanded layer distances, which could be a promising anodic material for sodium-ion batteries.

    • Yang Wen
    • , Kai He
    •  & Chunsheng Wang

  • Article |

    Lumped circuit elements provide a simple tool to design complex electronic systems; a similar approach has been proposed for nanophotonics. Here, the authors demonstrate the modularized design and assembly of photonic nanocircuits using metal and dielectric nanoparticles as the constituent lumped elements.

    • Jinwei Shi
    • , Francesco Monticone
    •  & Andrea Alù

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electron-beam lithography is often used for patterning of asymmetric metal electrodes for nanoscale devices, but suffers from several limitations. Here, the authors report a new adhesion lithography process, which allows for high-throughput and simple fabrication of nanogap metal electrodes.

    • David J. Beesley
    • , James Semple
    •  & John C. deMello

  • Article |

    Molybdenum disulphide has been predicted to undergo an electronic phase transition, but experimental evidence for this is limited. Here, the authors observe a high-pressure semiconducting-to-metallic transition in molybdenum disulphide at 19 GPa, and quantify changes in electronic, vibrational, optical and structural properties.

    • Avinash P. Nayak
    • , Swastibrata Bhattacharyya
    •  & Jung-Fu Lin

  • Article |

    Electrical magnetochiral anisotropy phenomenon describes the change in resistance of chiral materials caused by the interplay between chirality, conductivity and magnetic fields. Pop et al.show here for the first time the occurrence of this phenomenon in a bulk chiral molecular conductor.

    • Flavia Pop
    • , Pascale Auban-Senzier
    •  & Narcis Avarvari

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carrier multiplication processes, where photons are converted into multiple charge carriers, promise higher efficiencies for solar cells based on quantum dots and nanorods. Here, the authors demonstrate carrier multiplication in PbS nanosheets, extending this effect to two-dimensional materials.

    • Michiel Aerts
    • , Thomas Bielewicz
    •  & Laurens D. A. Siebbeles

  • Article |

    Introducing active hetrojunctions could improve the capabilities of devices based on colloidal quantum dots. Here, the authors develop nanorods with double heterojunctions and show that they can provide independent control over the electron and hole processes, demonstrating their potential in light-emitting diodes.

    • Nuri Oh
    • , Sooji Nam
    •  & Moonsub Shim

  • Article |

    In materials with strongly correlated electrons, charge carriers can separate into stripes of different electronic phases. Here, Anissimova et al. present evidence that in La2−xSrxNiO4these stripes can dynamically fluctuate, which helps to understand phenomena such as insulator–metal transitions.

    • S. Anissimova
    • , D. Parshall
    •  & D. Reznik

  • Article |

    A memristor is the missing fourth circuit element that remembers its bias history. The storage in established devices today occurs by binary switching between ON and OFF states due to filamentary or interfacial mechanisms. Here, Aoki et al.show an analogue-type, homogeneous switching memristor system based on gallium oxide.

    • Yoshitaka Aoki
    • , Carsten Wiemann
    •  & Manfred Martin

  • Article |

    Spin-orbit Mott materials such as Sr3Ir3O7 and Sr2IrO4exhibit rich correlation-driven physics, which makes them promising candidates for novel electronic states. Here, the authors explore the effect of hole-doping within the spin-orbit Mott phase and show that the carriers localize within a phase-separated ground state.

    • Chetan Dhital
    • , Tom Hogan
    •  & Stephen D. Wilson

  • Article |

    It has been a puzzle that the capacitance of high surface area carbon electrodes is relatively low. Ji et al. measure capacitances of mono- and multilayer graphene electrodes, rationalize the ‘capacitance deficit’ and report an unexpected increase of capacitance with decreasing electrode thickness.

    • Hengxing Ji
    • , Xin Zhao
    •  & Rodney S. Ruoff

  • Article |

    Monolayers of transition metal dichalcogenides have emerged as interesting two-dimensional materials. Here, the authors show that in a new member of this family of compounds, rhenium disulphide, the layers in the bulk are vibrationally and electronically decoupled, so that they behave almost as monolayers.

    • Sefaattin Tongay
    • , Hasan Sahin
    •  & Junqiao Wu

  • Article |

    The electrical contacts to semiconductor nanostructures play an important role for the performance of nanotechnology devices. Here Suyatin et al.observe a strong reduction in the Schottky barrier height between Au–In alloy particles and GaAs-nanowires owing to a reduced density of pinning states and formation of an electric dipole layer.

    • Dmitry B. Suyatin
    • , Vishal Jain
    •  & Håkan Pettersson

  • Article |

    Usually magnetoelectric switching is accompanied by hysteresis, which is a consequence of the large barrier between different magnetoelectric states. Here, the authors show that in the antiferromagnet Ni3TeO6magnetoelectric switching of magnetization as well as polarization occur without hysteresis.

    • Yoon Seok Oh
    • , Sergey Artyukhin
    •  & Sang-Wook Cheong

  • Article |

    There is interest in hexagonal boron nitride and hexagonal boron carbonitride in electronics applications, but synthesizing them with high quality is challenging. Here, chemical vapour deposition graphene was chemically converted to hexagonal boron nitride and hexagonal boron carbonitride with both high on-off ratios and mobilities.

    • Yongji Gong
    • , Gang Shi
    •  & Pulickel M. Ajayan

  • Article |

    Isotopic substitution alters the optoelectronic properties of conducting polymers, but a microscopic understanding is still missing. Shao et al.address this effect using a series of polymer isotopes that are synthesized with deuterium atoms substituted either on their backbone or side chains.

    • Ming Shao
    • , Jong Keum
    •  & Kai Xiao

  • Article |

    Realising flexible, lightweight and transparent electronics is a continuous challenge. Here, the authors report a process to create such transistor devices, which can be transferred onto various flexible substrates, and continue to function when wrapped around human hairs.

    • Giovanni A. Salvatore
    • , Niko Münzenrieder
    •  & Gerhard Tröster

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Molecular transport junctions show promising applications in the fabrication of computing nanocircuits. Meng et al. design a family of organometallic compounds and use them in logic gates whereby molecular conductivity can be orthogonal and stepwise controlled by light and electrochemical potential.

    • Fanben Meng
    • , Yves-Marie Hervault
    •  & Xiaodong Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Three-dimensional graphene offers an ideal sheet-to-sheet connectivity of assembled graphenes, but often suffers from poor electrochemical performance. Wang et al. present a sugar-blowing technique to prepare a 3D graphene, which overcomes such problems and shows potential in supercapacitor applications.

    • Xuebin Wang
    • , Yuanjian Zhang
    •  & Yoshio Bando

  • Article |

    The energy alignment at organic-metal interface has a strong influence on the performance of organic-based electronic devices. Lin et al.show this alignment can be tuned by varying the thickness of a uniform metallic thin film, which is confined between organic active layers and the substrate.

    • Meng-Kai Lin
    • , Yasuo Nakayama
    •  & S.-J. Tang

  • Article |

    The success of spintronics as a new technology hinges on the materials that are suitable for turning a spin current into an electric current. Here, the authors introduce a new material, iridium oxide, for this purpose, which outperforms traditional materials like platinum.

    • Kohei Fujiwara
    • , Yasuhiro Fukuma
    •  & Hidenori Takagi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Inversion type transistors – which are widely used in silicon-based industries – are thought to not be obtainable in organic devices. Lüssem et al.realize the first inversion organic field-effect transistor by doping at the source and drain contacts without degrading its ON/OFF ratio.

    • Björn Lüssem
    • , Max L. Tietze
    •  & Karl Leo

  • Article |

    The behaviour of strongly correlated nickelates is well studied in bulk but the corresponding strained thin films are largely unexplored. Here, the authors study strained NdNiO3thin films with various degrees of strain and, in addition to a metal-to-insulator transition, find quantum critical behaviour.

    • Jian Liu
    • , Mehdi Kargarian
    •  & Jak Chakhalian

  • Article |

    The electrostatic response of materials to macroscopic deformations is crucial for the operation of sensors and actuators. Here, the author combines ideas from transformation optics and density-functional perturbation theory to achieve a general description of surface flexoelectric effects.

    • Massimiliano Stengel

  • Article |

    Nanopores of porous electrodes have key roles in enhancing supercapacitor performance, but little is known at the atomic level. Merlet et al. perform molecular dynamics simulations and report the effects of confinement of electrolyte ions inside the pores on charge storage efficiency.

    • C. Merlet
    • , C. Péan
    •  & M. Salanne

  • Article |

    The alloying of graphene and hexagonal boron nitride results in tunable electronic properties that can be used for solid state devices. Lu et al. identify atomic-scale mechanisms of alloying boron–carbon–nitrogen on ruthenium as a model system, which allow for potentially greater control of properties.

    • Jiong Lu
    • , Kai Zhang
    •  & Kian Ping Loh

  • Article |

    Plutonium has unusual physical properties due to strong electronic correlation, but its α-phase has not been studied much in this respect. Using sophisticated numerical methods, Zhu et al. show that in this phase different atomic sites have different degrees of electronic correlation.

    • Jian-Xin Zhu
    • , R. C. Albers
    •  & J. M. Wills

  • Article |

    To reach terabit density in random access memory devices, the select switching and storage components need to be improved. Here, the authors fabricate a fully stackable switching device based on chalcogenides, which reaches an exceptional performance following reactive nitrogen and nitrogen plasma treatments.

    • Myoung-Jae Lee
    • , Dongsoo Lee
    •  & In-Kyeong Yoo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Micro-supercapacitors offer the advantage of high power density over lithium batteries and high energy density over electric capacitors, but integration of these advantages is yet to be achieved. Wu et al. develop a graphene-based in-plane micro-supercapacitor with ultrahigh power and energy densities.

    • Zhong–Shuai Wu
    • , Khaled Parvez
    •  & Klaus Müllen

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