Materials chemistry articles within Nature Materials

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  • News & Views |

    An adsorbed polymer directs the photochemical growth of colloidal Au single-crystal nanoprisms following visible metal excitation.

    • Louis Brus

  • News & Views |

    A thin, porous polymer membrane fabricated using kinked monomers shows high solvent permeance while selectively blocking larger molecules.

    • Neil B. McKeown

  • News & Views |

    A protein complex found to align with the direction of a magnetic field could be a key piece in the puzzle of how animals detect magnetic fields.

    • Kenneth J. Lohmann

  • Review Article |

    This Review discusses the properties and applications of supramolecular biomaterials for drug delivery, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and immunology.

    • Matthew J. Webber
    • , Eric A. Appel
    •  & Robert Langer

  • News & Views |

    Large single-crystalline graphene monolayers have been synthesized on a Cu–Ni alloy using a local precursor feeding method with an enhanced growth rate. The fast production of wafer-scale single crystals brings graphene closer to real applications.

    • Li Lin
    •  & Zhongfan Liu

  • Article |

    The degradation of exfoliated black phosphorus in ambient conditions may limit its use in electronic devices. The combined effects of light irradiation and exposure to oxygen on mono- and multilayers of this material are now investigated.

    • Alexandre Favron
    • , Etienne Gaufrès
    •  & Richard Martel

  • Letter |

    A porous metal–organic framework with ultrawide channels and excellent chemical stability is now shown to be highly efficacious for the catalytic decomposition of chemical warfare agents containing phosphate ester bonds.

    • Joseph E. Mondloch
    • , Michael J. Katz
    •  & Omar K. Farha

  • News & Views |

    The finding of a sharp interface between a chemically attacked surface and the pristine bulk in a borosilicate glass is at odds with the widely held diffusion-based mechanisms of glass durability.

    • Andrew Putnis

  • Commentary |

    To design reliable and safe geological repositories it is critical to understand how the characteristics of spent nuclear fuel evolve with time, and how this affects the storage environment.

    • Rodney C. Ewing

  • Letter |

    Memristors promise to emulate the appealing characteristics of biological neural systems. Solution-processed heterostructures are now shown to behave as memristive and memcapacitive switches compatible with printed electronics applications.

    • Alexander A. Bessonov
    • , Marina N. Kirikova
    •  & Marc J. A. Bailey

  • Letter |

    Palladium is of practical use as a hydrogen-storage metal and an effective catalyst for reactions related to hydrogen in a variety of industrial processes. Enhanced capacity and speed of hydrogen storage is now reported in Pd nanocrystals covered with a metal–organic framework.

    • Guangqin Li
    • , Hirokazu Kobayashi
    •  & Hiroshi Kitagawa

  • Commentary |

    Many materials-based therapeutic systems have reached the clinic or are in clinical trials. Here we describe materials design principles and the construction of delivery vehicles, as well as their adaptation and evaluation for human use.

    • Jeffrey A. Hubbell
    •  & Robert Langer

  • Commentary |

    Cancer nanomedicines approved so far minimize toxicity, but their efficacy is often limited by physiological barriers posed by the tumour microenvironment. Here, we discuss how these barriers can be overcome through innovative nanomedicine design and through creative manipulation of the tumour microenvironment.

    • Vikash P. Chauhan
    •  & Rakesh K. Jain

  • Article |

    The catalytic activity of highly dispersed platinum nanoparticles is not yet well understood. Now, a unique approach that allows precise control of both the size and coverage of platinum nanoclusters reveals that particle proximity influences the oxygen reduction rate of these size-selected clusters, especially in terms of mass normalized activity.

    • Markus Nesselberger
    • , Melanie Roefzaad
    •  & Matthias Arenz

  • Letter |

    Although the coarsening of catalytically active metal clusters can be accelerated by the presence of gases, the role played by gas molecules is difficult to ascertain. Carbon monoxide-induced coalescence of Pd adatoms supported on a Fe3O4 surface is now investigated at room temperature, and Pd-carbonyl species are shown to be responsible for their mobility.

    • Gareth S. Parkinson
    • , Zbynek Novotny
    •  & Ulrike Diebold

  • Article |

    Despite recent progress in the synthesis and characterization of molybdenum disulphide, little is yet known about its microstructure. Using refined chemical vapour deposition synthesis, high-quality crystals of monolayer molybdenum disulphide have now been grown. Single-crystal islands and polycrystals containing tilt and mirror twin grain boundaries are characterized, and the influence of the grain boundaries on the material properties of molybdenum disulphide is assessed.

    • Arend M. van der Zande
    • , Pinshane Y. Huang
    •  & James C. Hone

  • News & Views |

    Topological insulators have generated much interest in condensed-matter physics. The synthesis and characterization of Bi14Rh3I9, a so-called weak topological insulator, demonstrates that chemists also have much to offer to the field.

    • Robert J. Cava

  • Letter |

    Because it is an intrinsically slow technique, scanning tunnelling microscopy is not usually useful for studying the dynamics of particles on a surface. This issue is now solved by using scanning noise microscopy, which yields a complete characterization of copper phthalocyanine molecules on Cu(111), ranging from the dynamical processes to the underlying electronic structure at the single-molecule level.

    • Johannes Schaffert
    • , Maren C. Cottin
    •  & Rolf Möller

  • Article |

    Semiconductor photoelectrodes for solar hydrogen production by water photoelectrolysis require stable and abundant visible-light absorbers such as iron oxide. Although this material suffers from poor transport properties for efficient charge-carrier generation and collection, these drawbacks can now be addressed by using resonant light trapping in ultrathin films designed as optical cavities.

    • Hen Dotan
    • , Ofer Kfir
    •  & Avner Rothschild

  • Letter |

    The interaction between electrons and phonons is important for many materials properties. The finding that phonon modes of a superconducting thin film can influence the properties of an adjacent normal conductor, even over comparatively long distances, suggests new ways of controlling electron–phonon interactions.

    • N. Driza
    • , S. Blanco-Canosa
    •  & B. Keimer

  • Research Highlights |

    • Christian Martin

  • 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 |

    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

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