Materials chemistry articles within Nature Materials

Featured

  • Article |

    Pseudocapacitors exhibit charge-storage mechanisms leading to high-capacity and rapidly cycling devices. An organic system designed via molecular contortion is now shown to exhibit unprecedented electrochemical performance and stability.

    • Jake C. Russell
    • , Victoria A. Posey
    •  & Samuel R. Peurifoy

  • News & Views |

    Nanoporous tripeptide crystals mechanically deform upon water evaporation due to the strengthening of the water hydrogen bonding inside the pores, which causes the distortion of the surrounding supramolecular network, creating stresses that extend through the crystal lattice and result in actuation.

    • Panče Naumov

  • News & Views |

    Linking π-conjugated, electron-deficient ligands into atomically precise large single crystals of conducting 2D metal–organic frameworks can allow the determination of intrinsic electrical conductivity and charge transport mechanism.

    • Renhao Dong
    •  & Xinliang Feng

  • News & Views |

    Hybrid materials constructed from the assembly of inorganic building blocks and organic linkers have shown unique properties and applications. Superstructures of semiconductor magic-sized nanoclusters linked by diamines now join this class of materials.

    • Raffaella Buonsanti

  • Article |

    A broad range of characterization techniques is used to understand the dominant electron conduction in various p-type doped π-conjugated polymers, which show p-type and n-type thermoelectric power factors depending on the dopant concentration.

    • Zhiming Liang
    • , Hyun Ho Choi
    •  & Kenneth R. Graham

  • Article |

    The applicability of organic materials in conventional Li-ion batteries is challenging owing to the lack of lithium-containing and air-stable cathodes. A class of conjugated sulfonamides to be used as lithium-ion positive electrodes is now shown to exhibit reversible charge storage.

    • Jiande Wang
    • , Alae Eddine Lakraychi
    •  & Alexandru Vlad

  • Perspective |

    This Perspective provides a broad introduction to topological materials science, with a particular focus on semimetals.

    • Prineha Narang
    • , Christina A. C. Garcia
    •  & Claudia Felser

  • Article |

    The low dielectric constants and high porosity of MOFs are of interest for applications in electronics and sensors, but patterning techniques for these materials are in their infancy. Here, direct X-ray and electron-beam lithography at sub-50-nm resolution are reported that leave porosity and crystallinity intact.

    • Min Tu
    • , Benzheng Xia
    •  & Rob Ameloot

  • Letter |

    A carbazole isomer, typically present as an impurity in commercially produced carbazole batches, is shown to be responsible for the ultralong phosphorescence observed in these compounds and their derivatives.

    • Chengjian Chen
    • , Zhenguo Chi
    •  & Bin Liu

  • Perspective |

    Lewis acid aluminium sites in zeolites enable some industrially relevant catalytic reactions, such as biomass valorization. This Perspective explores the origin and interpretation of these species, and discusses characterization techniques that can close knowledge gaps.

    • Manoj Ravi
    • , Vitaly L. Sushkevich
    •  & Jeroen A. van Bokhoven

  • Comment |

    The restoration of fire-damaged historical monuments entails a wide range of scientific questions. Taking as a starting point the case of Notre-Dame de Paris, this Comment defines the materials science challenges of post-fire restoration, and also briefly outlines the issues of structural integrity, fire safety and preservation ethics.

    • Ylenia Praticò
    • , John Ochsendorf
    •  & Robert J. Flatt

  • News & Views |

    Programmable DNA hybridization is used to mediate the self-assembly of substrate-bound DNA-grafted gold nanoparticles into single-crystalline Winterbottom and non-Winterbottom constructions with particular size, shape and orientation.

    • Chang Liu
    •  & Qian Chen

  • Article |

    Radiation-induced segregation is widely observed in metals. Here it is discovered that radiation-induced segregation also occurs in a ceramic, with carbon atoms in silicon carbide segregating to the grain boundaries under irradiation.

    • Xing Wang
    • , Hongliang Zhang
    •  & Izabela Szlufarska

  • News & Views |

    First-principles calculations predicted electronic topological properties for 2D honeycomb–kagome polymers, which have been now confirmed experimentally thanks to improvements in on-surface synthesis.

    • Yu Jing
    •  & Thomas Heine

  • Review Article |

    Organic semiconductors are making their way into applications ranging from display technology to flexible electronics and biomedical applications. This Review discusses current understanding of charge carrier transport in these materials and strategies to improve their performance.

    • Simone Fratini
    • , Mark Nikolka
    •  & Henning Sirringhaus

  • Article |

    Methylammonium is shown to influence the crystallization process in hybrid lead halide perovskites, leading to a more homogeneous chemical distribution of caesium and formamidinium and improved charge transport between grains in multi-cation systems.

    • Makhsud I. Saidaminov
    • , Kristopher Williams
    •  & Edward H. Sargent

  • News & Views |

    Physical confinement and magnetic fields are used to align organic molecules that self-assemble into large-size single crystals with perfect positional order.

    • Andrei V. Petukhov

  • Article |

    A structural investigation on the formation of 3D superlattices of colloidal PbSe quantum dots reveals a topotactic transition from the self-assembled phase of ligand-capped quantum dots to the epitaxially fused phase typical of conductive solids.

    • Alex Abelson
    • , Caroline Qian
    •  & Matt Law

  • News & Views |

    Nanovoids in organic semiconductors can serve as hosts for water inclusions that lead to trapping of electrons and holes.

    • David J. Yaron
    •  & Tomasz Kowalewski

  • News & Views |

    Materials that permit spatiotemporal control of biomolecule presentation have long been a challenge in the field. A method has now been developed to reversibly pattern cell-laden hydrogels with site-specifically immobilized proteins using sortase-mediated transpeptidation without compromising bioactivity.

    • Jonathan H. Galarraga
    •  & Jason A. Burdick

  • Article |

    Aqueous electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 into alcohol and hydrocarbon fuels is a sustainable route towards energy-rich chemical feedstocks. A superhydrophobic surface of hierarchically structured Cu dendrites exhibits a significant increase in CO2 reduction selectivity.

    • David Wakerley
    • , Sarah Lamaison
    •  & Victor Mougel

  • News & Views |

    Crystallized anti-inflammatory drugs have been shown to inhibit fibrosis on the surface of a number of devices over a long-term period following implantation in rodents and non-human primates.

    • Ruud A. Bank

  • Article |

    Molecular sieving separates larger from smaller molecules, but all molecules smaller than the pore adsorb, hindering selectivity. Here, a MOF is reported with both molecular sieving and gate-opening, separating intermediate-sized molecules from larger and smaller analogues.

    • Dong-Dong Zhou
    • , Pin Chen
    •  & Jie-Peng Zhang

  • Letter |

    Molten salts are used as a reaction medium to protect carbide, nitride and boride powders from oxidation during high-temperature synthesis in air, thus avoiding the need to carry out these processes in a vacuum or inert environment.

    • Apurv Dash
    • , Robert Vaßen
    •  & Jesus Gonzalez-Julian

  • Article |

    The simultaneous high-pressure and high-temperature phase diagram of two MOFs, ZIF-4 and ZIF-62, is mapped. Crystalline, pressure- and temperature-amorphous, and liquid states are found, while melting temperature is found to decrease with pressure.

    • Remo N. Widmer
    • , Giulio I. Lampronti
    •  & Thomas D. Bennett

  • Letter |

    Facile absorption and desorption of hydrogen at palladium surfaces provides a way to define how metal–solute interactions impact properties relevant to energy storage, catalysis and sensing. In situ X-ray diffraction has now been used to track both hydrogen absorption and desorption in palladium nanocrystals.

    • Noah J. J. Johnson
    • , Brian Lam
    •  & Curtis P. Berlinguette

  • Article |

    Reversible high-voltage redox is a key component for electrochemical technologies from electrocatalysts to lithium-ion batteries. A point defect explanation for why anion redox occurs with local structural disordering and voltage hysteresis is proposed.

    • Jihyun Hong
    • , William E. Gent
    •  & William C. Chueh

  • News & Views |

    A vaccine platform developed from a synthetic polymeric glyco-adjuvant and reversibly conjugated to an antigen was shown to target dendritic cells leading to cellular and humoral immune response against malaria.

    • Yvette van Kooyk

  • Article |

    A monomer molecular dopant with high electron affinity is shown to accept up to two electrons from conjugated polymers with low ionization efficiency and then generate free charge carriers with an efficiency of up to 170%.

    • David Kiefer
    • , Renee Kroon
    •  & Christian Müller

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