Materials science articles within Nature

Featured

  • News & Views |

    Persistently luminescent nanocrystals have been used to make flexible X-ray detectors that produce better images of 3D objects than do the flat-panel detectors currently widely used in radiography.

    • Albano N. Carneiro Neto
    •  & Oscar L. Malta

  • Article |

    Polycarbonates and polyesters with materials properties like those of high-density polyethylene can be recycled chemically by depolymerization to their constituent monomers, re-polymerization yielding material with uncompromised processing and materials properties.

    • Manuel Häußler
    • , Marcel Eck
    •  & Stefan Mecking

  • Article |

    Using lanthanide-doped nanomaterials and flexible substrates, an approach that enables flat-panel-free, high-resolution, three-dimensional imaging is demonstrated and termed X-ray luminescence extension imaging.

    • Xiangyu Ou
    • , Xian Qin
    •  & Xiaogang Liu

  • Article |

    Nano-Raman spectroscopy reveals localization of some vibrational modes in reconstructed twisted bilayer graphene and provides qualitative insights into how electron–phonon coupling affects the vibrational and electronic properties of the material.

    • Andreij C. Gadelha
    • , Douglas A. A. Ohlberg
    •  & Ado Jorio

  • Article |

    Dispersion of colloidal disks in a nematic liquid crystal reveals several low-symmetry phases, including monoclinic colloidal nematic order, with interchange between them achieved through variations in temperature, concentration and surface charge.

    • Haridas Mundoor
    • , Jin-Sheng Wu
    •  & Ivan I. Smalyukh

  • Article |

    Bulk ultrafine-grained steel is prepared by an approach that involves the rapid production of coherent, disordered nanoprecipitates, which restrict grain growth but do not interfere with twinning or dislocation motion, resulting in high strength and ductility.

    • Junheng Gao
    • , Suihe Jiang
    •  & W. Mark Rainforth

  • Perspective |

    Opportunities for the application of fibrillated cellulose materials—which can be extracted from renewable resources—and broader manufacturing issues of scale-up, sustainability and synergy with the paper-making industry are discussed.

    • Tian Li
    • , Chaoji Chen
    •  & Liangbing Hu

  • Article |

    A family of topological antiferromagnetic spin textures is realized at room temperature in α-Fe2O3, and their reversible and field-free stabilization using a Kibble–Zurek-like temperature cycling is demonstrated.

    • Hariom Jani
    • , Jheng-Cyuan Lin
    •  & Paolo G. Radaelli

  • Article |

    X-ray diffraction measurements of solid carbon compressed to pressures of about two terapascals (approximately twenty million atmospheres) find that carbon retains a diamond structure even under these extreme conditions.

    • A. Lazicki
    • , D. McGonegle
    •  & J. S. Wark

  • Article |

    A reprogrammable mechanical metamaterial constructed of bistable unit cells that can be switched independently and reversibly between two stable states with distinct mechanical properties using magnetic actuation is demonstrated.

    • Tian Chen
    • , Mark Pauly
    •  & Pedro M. Reis

  • News & Views |

    A device has been developed that consists of mechanical bits, analogous to the magnetic bits used in computer hard drives. Information encoded in the bits programs the mechanical properties of the device.

    • Corentin Coulais

  • News & Views |

    Fractional electric charges have been observed at crystal defects in artificial structures resembling materials called topological crystalline insulators. Such fractional charges could have various engineering applications.

    • Carmine Ortix

  • Article |

    A theoretical model, in vitro reconstitution and in vivo experimentation show that competition between droplet surface tension and membrane sheet instability dictates the form and function of autophagosomal membranes.

    • Jaime Agudo-Canalejo
    • , Sebastian W. Schultz
    •  & Roland L. Knorr

  • News & Views |

    In some materials, the absorption of a single photon can trigger a chain reaction that produces a large burst of light. The discovery of these photon avalanches in nanostructures opens the way to imaging and sensing applications.

    • Andries Meijerink
    •  & Freddy T. Rabouw

  • Article |

    Room-temperature photon avalanching realized in single thulium-doped upconverting nanocrystals enables super-resolution imaging at near-infrared wavelengths of maximal biological transparency and provides a material platform potentially suitable for other optical technologies.

    • Changhwan Lee
    • , Emma Z. Xu
    •  & P. James Schuck

  • News & Views |

    Transitions between amorphous forms of solids and liquids are difficult to study. Machine learning has now provided fresh insight into pressure-induced transformations of amorphous silicon, opening the way to studies of other systems.

    • Paul F. McMillan

  • Article |

    Machine learning models enable atomistic simulations of phase transitions in amorphous silicon, predict electronic fingerprints, and show that the pressure-induced crystallization occurs over three distinct stages.

    • Volker L. Deringer
    • , Noam Bernstein
    •  & Stephen R. Elliott

  • Article |

    State-of-the-art electron energy-loss spectroscopy in a transmission electron microscope maps the detailed phonon spectra of single defects in silicon carbide

    • Xingxu Yan
    • , Chengyan Liu
    •  & Xiaoqing Pan

  • Article |

    Pronounced quantum oscillations in magnetoresistance, a phenomenon that was only expected in metals with highly mobile carriers, are observed in the strongly insulating state of two-dimensional WTe2.

    • Pengjie Wang
    • , Guo Yu
    •  & Sanfeng Wu

  • News & Views |

    A 3D-printing technique has been developed that can produce millimetre- to centimetre-scale objects with micrometre-scale features. It relies on chemical reactions triggered by the intersection of two light beams.

    • Cameron Darkes-Burkey
    •  & Robert F. Shepherd

  • Article |

    By combining the use of photoswitchable photoinitators and intersecting light beams, objects and complex systems can be produced rapidly with higher definition than is possible using state-of-the art macroscopic volumetric methods.

    • Martin Regehly
    • , Yves Garmshausen
    •  & Stefan Hecht

  • Article |

    The number of edge channels in quantum anomalous Hall insulators is controlled by varying either the magnetic dopant concentration or the interior spacer layer thickness, yielding Chern numbers up to 5.

    • Yi-Fan Zhao
    • , Ruoxi Zhang
    •  & Cui-Zu Chang

  • Article |

    In the tiniest of capillaries, barely larger than a water molecule, condensation is surprisingly predictable from the macroscopic Kelvin condensation equation, a coincidence partially owing to elastic deformation of the capillary walls.

    • Qian Yang
    • , P. Z. Sun
    •  & A. K. Geim

  • Article |

    Estimates of global total biomass (the mass of all living things) and anthopogenic mass (the mass embedded in inanimate objects made by humans) over time show that we are roughly at the timepoint when anthropogenic mass exceeds total biomass.

    • Emily Elhacham
    • , Liad Ben-Uri
    •  & Ron Milo

  • Where I Work |

    Fire-safety researcher Luke Bisby investigates which materials can take the heat.

    • Kendall Powell

  • Article |

    Non-volatile electrical switching of magnetic order in an orbital Chern insulator is experimentally demonstrated using a moiré heterostructure and analysis shows that the effect is driven by topological edge states.

    • H. Polshyn
    • , J. Zhu
    •  & A. F. Young

  • Article |

    Electronic ferroelectricity is observed in a graphene-based moiré heterostructure, which is explained using a spontaneous interlayer charge-transfer model driven by layer-specific on-site Coulomb repulsion.

    • Zhiren Zheng
    • , Qiong Ma
    •  & Pablo Jarillo-Herrero

  • Article |

    Spectroscopic studies and theoretical calculations of the electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction establish that reaction rates depend on the amount of charge stored in the electrocatalyst, and not on the applied potential.

    • Hong Nhan Nong
    • , Lorenz J. Falling
    •  & Travis E. Jones

  • Article |

    Strain gauges with both high sensitivity and high mechanical resilience, based on strain-mediated contact in anisotropically resistive structures, are demonstrated within a sensor-integrated, textile-based sleeve that can recognize human hand motions via muscle deformations.

    • Oluwaseun A. Araromi
    • , Moritz A. Graule
    •  & Robert J. Wood

  • News & Views |

    The Philae spacecraft was meant to anchor itself to the surface of the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, but instead bounced into a hidden grotto. The telltale markings of its passage reveal details of the comet’s fragile boulders.

    • Erik Asphaug

  • Article |

    High-throughput calculations are performed to predict approximately 130 magnetic topological materials, with complete electronic structure calculations and topological phase diagrams.

    • Yuanfeng Xu
    • , Luis Elcoro
    •  & B. Andrei Bernevig

Browse broader subjects

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Materials science across other nature.com journals