Materials for devices articles within Nature Materials

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  • News & Views |

    The slow turn-on speed in accumulation-mode organic electrochemical transistors is explained by asymmetric ion transport in switching kinetics.

    • Hang Yu
    •  & Jenny Nelson

  • News & Views |

    Modified Suzuki–Miyaura polymerization procedures provide a scalable and reproducible route to regioregular conjugated polymers.

    • Mario Leclerc
    •  & Serge Beaupré

  • News & Views |

    Liquid bioelectronics based on a permanent fluidic magnet made from three-dimensional assembled magnetic colloidal particles can be injected into the surface of the heart for cardiovascular monitoring and subsequently retrieved after use.

    • Jiahong Li
    • , Yadong Xu
    •  & Wei Gao

  • Article |

    The magnetism-mediated assembly of non-Brownian magnetic colloidal particles into a three-dimensional oriented and ramified magnetic network yields permanent fluidic magnets that are used in a self-powered, liquid-based wireless cardiovascular sensor.

    • Xun Zhao
    • , Yihao Zhou
    •  & Jun Chen

  • Article |

    A strategy of on-device phase engineering of two-dimensional materials is proposed, allowing the in situ realization of various lattice phases with distinct stoichiometries and versatile functions.

    • Xiaowei Liu
    • , Junjie Shan
    •  & Feng Miao

  • Article |

    The turn-off time is generally faster than the turn-on time in accumulation mode organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs), but the mechanism is less understood. Here the authors find different transient behaviours of turn-on and turn-off in accumulation mode OECTs, and ion transport is the limiting factor of device kinetics.

    • Jiajie Guo
    • , Shinya E. Chen
    •  & David S. Ginger

  • Research Briefing |

    Soft pressure sensors drift under prolonged high stress because of the creep of soft materials, which causes inaccurate measurements. Now, through molecular-level design, a leakage-free and creep-free polyelectrolyte elastomer is synthesized, and an iontronic sensor using the polyelectrolyte elastomer shows very low signal drift under a high static pressure.

  • News & Views |

    Highly efficient matrix-free hyperfluorescent organic light-emitting diodes are constructed with remarkably supressed Dexter transfer utilizing narrowband blue emitters encapsulated with hopped alkyl chains.

    • Yuewei Zhang
    •  & Lian Duan

  • Perspective |

    Molecular materials for computing progress intensively but the performance and reliability still lag behind. Here the authors assess the current state of computing with molecular-based materials and describe two issues as the basis of a new computing technology: continued exploration of molecular electronic properties and process development for on-chip integration.

    • R. Stanley Williams
    • , Sreebrata Goswami
    •  & Sreetosh Goswami

  • Article |

    Conventional iontronic pressure sensors suffer from signal drift and inaccuracy owing to creep of soft materials and ion leakage. Here the authors report a leakage-free and creep-free polyelectrolyte-elastomer-based iontronic sensor that achieves a drift rate two to three orders of magnitude lower than those of conventional iontronic sensors.

    • Yunfeng He
    • , Yu Cheng
    •  & Chuan Fei Guo

  • Research Briefing |

    Single-crystal black phosphorus nanoribbons have been grown through chemical vapour transport, using black phosphorus nanoparticles as seeds. The nanoribbons orient exclusively along the zigzag direction and have good semiconductor properties that render them suitable for use as channel material in field-effect transistors.

  • Article |

    A large Josephson diode effect has been reported at liquid-nitrogen temperatures in twisted flakes of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ.

    • Sanat Ghosh
    • , Vilas Patil
    •  & Mandar M. Deshmukh

  • News & Views |

    Early detection of electrical degradation can be identified by colour change due to the chromogenic response of blended molecules in dielectric polymers.

    • Gregory A. Sotzing
    •  & Pritish S. Aklujkar

  • Research Briefing |

    Metal monochalcogenides — a class of van der Waals layered semiconductors — can exhibit ultrahigh plasticity. Investigation of the deformation mechanism reveals that on mechanical loading, these materials undergo local phase transitions that, coupled with the concurrent generation of a microcrack network, give rise to the ultrahigh plasticity.

  • Article |

    Employing light-transformable polymers, multiple physical unclonable functions are demonstrated within a single device with all-optical reversible reconfigurability. Such devices may enable quantum secure authentication and nonlinear cryptographic key generation applications.

    • Sara Nocentini
    • , Ulrich Rührmair
    •  & Francesco Riboli

  • Feature |

    Frustrated by reproducibility in electrical measurements on ferroelectric films, Lane Martin, Jon-Paul Maria and Darrell Schlom discuss tactics to reliably synthesize ‘good’ ferroelectric samples, especially in the search for superior materials and device heterostructures.

    • Lane W. Martin
    • , Jon-Paul Maria
    •  & Darrell G. Schlom

  • Feature |

    Peng Wu, Tianyi Zhang, Jiadi Zhu, Tomás Palacios and Jing Kong discuss the reproducibility issues in the synthesis and device fabrication of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides that need to be addressed to enable the lab-to-fab transition.

    • Peng Wu
    • , Tianyi Zhang
    •  & Jing Kong

  • Research Briefing |

    Inspired by the observed coherent interface between hexagonal α-Fe2O3 and tetragonal fluorine-doped SnO2, an oxygen sublattice-matching paradigm is proposed to grow textured films on lattice-mismatched substrates. Through assessing the similarity of Voronoi cells for sublattices, this approach offers opportunities to synthesize (semi)coherent heterostructures and textured films.

  • News & Views |

    By forming a heterostructure interface, and by judicious choice of crystallographic orientation, piezoelectrics are developed that show expansion or contraction along all axes on application of an electric field.

    • Eugene A. Eliseev
    •  & Anna N. Morozovska

  • Article |

    Depositing textured functional materials on transparent conducting oxides remains a challenge. We demonstrate the formation of a coherent interface between a set of functional oxides and fluorine-doped-tin-oxide-based transparent conducting oxide substrate despite the lattice mismatch, owing to dimensional and chemical matching of oxygen sublattices at the interface.

    • Huiting Huang
    • , Jun Wang
    •  & Zhigang Zou

  • Article |

    Early detection of electrical degradation in dielectric polymers is crucial but remains challenging. A general strategy of blending the polymer with chromogenic molecules is reported, which generates a visually discernible colour change as chemically activated by oxygen radicals generated in situ, indicating the early stage of electrical degradation in polymers.

    • Xiaoyan Huang
    • , Shuai Zhang
    •  & Jinliang He

  • Research Briefing |

    A traditional physical-reservoir device has limited flexibility and cannot perform well across a range of computing tasks, owing to the fixed reservoir properties of the physical system. However, by exploiting the rich magnetic phase spaces of a single chiral magnet, reservoir properties can be reconfigured. This control enables on-demand optimization of computational performance across diverse machine-learning tasks.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Current physical neuromorphic computing faces critical challenges of how to reconfigure key physical dynamics of a system to adapt computational performance to match a diverse range of tasks. Here the authors present a task-adaptive approach to physical neuromorphic computing based on on-demand control of computing performance using various magnetic phases of chiral magnets.

    • Oscar Lee
    • , Tianyi Wei
    •  & Hidekazu Kurebayashi

  • Editorial |

    Integrated design assisted by materials and technology innovations can help a transition from traditional to sustainable electronics.

  • News & Views |

    Terahertz photoconductivity measurements coupled with theoretical modelling reveals that thermal transient excitations to more delocalized states enhances hole mobility in organic molecular semiconductors.

    • Zhigang Shuai

  • Comment |

    An essential part of developing organic mixed ionic–electronic conducting materials and organic electrochemical transistors is consistent and standardized reporting of the product of charge carrier mobility and volumetric capacitance, the μC* product. This Comment argues that unexpected changes in transistor channel resistance can overestimate this figure of merit, leading to a confusion of comparisons in the literature.

    • Maryam Shahi
    • , Vianna N. Le
    •  & Alexandra F. Paterson

  • News & Views |

    Remotely powered vertical electrochemical transistors are demonstrated to track subtle nerve-cell activity even when the transistor core is fully shielded from the biological environment.

    • C. Eckel
    •  & R. T. Weitz

  • Article |

    Dynamic disorder reduces the carrier mobility in organic semiconductors (OSs) to an extent that depends on their specific electronic band structure. Here the authors study the temperature-dependent hole mobility of two structurally similar OSs and find that thermal access to transiently delocalized states enhances hole mobility in C8-DNTT-C8 compared to DNTT.

    • Samuele Giannini
    • , Lucia Di Virgilio
    •  & David Beljonne

  • News & Views |

    Using the van der Waals crystal Sb2O3 as a buffer layer enables the growth of high-κ dielectrics on two-dimensional materials via atomic layer deposition.

    • Yang Liu
    •  & James C. Hone

  • Research Briefing |

    By optimizing the molecular organization of blue-emitting organic semiconductors, the vulnerability of the materials to extrinsic impurities that cause charge trapping, such as oxygen and water, is strongly reduced. Steric shielding of the electron-transporting core is shown to increase the electron transport by several orders of magnitude.

  • News & Views |

    By tracking the electrochromic doping front, a hole-limited electrochemical doping mechanism is discovered in organic mixed ionic–electronic conductors.

    • Ruiheng Wu
    • , Dilara Meli
    •  & Jonathan Rivnay

  • Perspective |

    This Perspective provides an overview on the emergent field of colloidal robotics, discussing recent developments on colloidal and micrometre-sized particles that can perform functions such as sensing, communication, computation and motion.

    • Albert Tianxiang Liu
    • , Marek Hempel
    •  & Michael S. Strano

  • Research Briefing |

    Pressure sensing is challenging in liquid environments, where typical solid-state sensors do not perform well. A sensor with solid–liquid–liquid–gas multiphasic interfaces — its design inspired by the lotus leaf, and in which a trapped air layer modulates capacitance changes with pressure — is shown to achieve near-ideal pressure sensing and is well suited to liquid environments.

  • Article |

    Solid-state pressure sensors have performance limitations in liquid environments. Here, the authors design a pressure sensor using solid–liquid–liquid–gas multiphasic interfaces where a trapped air layer modulates capacitance changes with pressure to achieve near-friction-free contact line motions for near-ideal pressure sensing.

    • Wen Cheng
    • , Xinyu Wang
    •  & Benjamin C. K. Tee

  • News & Views |

    By means of a precise folding–tearing process, screw dislocations with helical cores — appearing in pairs and taking on a DNA-like double-helix structure — are engineered to control the growth of twisted bilayer graphene.

    • Pascal Pochet
    •  & Harley T. Johnson

  • Article |

    Ferroelectricity in hafnia-based systems seems to be correlated with oxygen vacancy dynamics, but the coupling of this and ferroelectric response is rarely studied. Here it is shown that Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 can be antiferroionic, with antiferroelectric behaviour coupled to surface electrochemistry.

    • Kyle P. Kelley
    • , Anna N. Morozovska
    •  & Sergei V. Kalinin

  • News & Views |

    Photochromic molecular crystal arrays aligned in the micropores of a polymer membrane show high-performance actuation when stimulated by light. These soft composites might find applications in soft robotic devices.

    • Albert P. H. J. Schenning

  • Perspective |

    The commercialization of electronic textile (e-textile) products requires balanced sustainability considerations. Here the authors propose an e-textile design framework involving repair, recycle, replacement and reduction that can unify environmental friendliness, market viability, supply-chain resilience and user experience quality.

    • HaoTian Harvey Shi
    • , Yifei Pan
    •  & Yan Yan Shery Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The two-dimensional layered crystal structure of niobium oxide polymorph T-Nb2O5 exhibits fast Li-ion diffusion that is promising for energy storage applications. Epitaxial growth of single-crystalline T-Nb2O5 thin films with ionic transport channels oriented perpendicular to the surface are now demonstrated.

    • Hyeon Han
    • , Quentin Jacquet
    •  & Stuart S. P. Parkin

  • Article |

    Photomechanical crystals are promising materials for converting photon energy into macroscopic work via reversible structural changes when exposed to light. Here the authors demonstrate highly ordered and compliant microcrystalline composites with a photomechanical performance exceeding that of single crystals.

    • Wenwen Xu
    • , David M. Sanchez
    •  & Ryan C. Hayward

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