Materials science articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The stacking of freestanding ferroelectric perovskite layers with controlled twist angles results in a peculiar pattern of polarization vortices and antivortices that emerges from the flexoelectric coupling of polarization to strain gradients.

    • G. Sánchez-Santolino
    • , V. Rouco
    •  & J. Santamaria

  • Article |

    Examining the in-plane spin components of the noncoplanar antiferromagnet manganese ditelluride provides spectroscopic and computational evidence of materials with a new type of plaid-like spin splitting in the antiferromagnetic ground state.

    • Yu-Peng Zhu
    • , Xiaobing Chen
    •  & Chang Liu

  • News & Views |

    In lithium-metal batteries, grains of lithium can become electrically isolated from the anode, lowering battery performance. Experiments reveal that rest periods after battery discharge might help to solve this problem.

    • Laura C. Merrill

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Vectorial optoelectronic metasurfaces are described, showing that light pulses can be used to drive and direct local charge flows around symmetry-broken plasmonic nanostructures, leading to tunable responses in terahertz emission.

    • Jacob Pettine
    • , Prashant Padmanabhan
    •  & Hou-Tong Chen

  • Article |

    Calendar ageing of lithium metal batteries in the discharged state improves capacity retention through isolated lithium recovery, which is in contrast with the capacity degradation observed during charged state calendar ageing.

    • Wenbo Zhang
    • , Philaphon Sayavong
    •  & Yi Cui

  • Research Briefing |

    Crystalline silicon solar cells have been brittle, heavy and fragile until now. Highly flexible versions with high power-to-weight ratios and power conversion efficiencies of 26.06–26.81% were produced by improving manufacturing and design technologies and by using thin wafer substrates.

  • News & Views |

    A technique for embedding fibres with semiconductor devices produces defect-free strands that are hundreds of metres long. Garments woven with these threads offer a tantalizing glimpse of the wearable electronics of the future.

    • Xiaoting Jia
    •  & Alex Parrott

  • Article |

    We develop a proton-exchange membrane system that reduces CO2 to formic acid at a catalyst that is derived from waste lead–acid batteries and in which a lattice carbon activation mechanism contributes.

    • Wensheng Fang
    • , Wei Guo
    •  & Bao Yu Xia

  • Article |

    A study reports a combination of processing, optimization and low-damage deposition methods for the production of silicon heterojunction solar cells exhibiting flexibility and high performance.

    • Yang Li
    • , Xiaoning Ru
    •  & Zongping Shao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A mechanical design is developed for the fabrication of ultralong, fracture-free and perturbation-free semiconductor fibres to address the increasing demand for flexible and wearable optoelectronics.

    • Zhixun Wang
    • , Zhe Wang
    •  & Lei Wei

  • News & Views |

    Millions of tonnes of ‘red mud’, a hazardous waste of aluminium production, are generated annually. A potentially sustainable process for treating this mud shows that it could become a source of iron for making steel.

    • Chenna Rao Borra

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Red mud is shown to yield green steel through fossil-free hydrogen-plasma-based reduction, a simple and fast method involving rapid liquid-state reduction, chemical partitioning, and density-driven and viscosity-driven separation.

    • Matic Jovičević-Klug
    • , Isnaldi R. Souza Filho
    •  & Dierk Raabe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Single-cycle terahertz pumps are used to impulsively trigger ionic hopping in battery solid electrolytes, probing ion transport at its fastest limit and demonstrating the connection between activated transport and the thermodynamics of information.

    • Andrey D. Poletayev
    • , Matthias C. Hoffmann
    •  & Aaron M. Lindenberg

  • Research Briefing |

    In heavy-fermion compounds, hybridization between mobile charge carriers and localized magnetic moments gives rise to exotic quantum phenomena. The discovery of heavy fermions in a van der Waals metal that can be peeled apart to a layer a few atoms thick allows these phenomena to be studied and manipulated in two dimensions.

  • Article |

    Using valley-resolved scanning tunnelling spectroscopy, twisted WSe2 bilayers are studied, including incommensurate dodecagon quasicrystals at 30° and commensurate moiré crystals at 21.8° and 38.2°.

    • Yanxing Li
    • , Fan Zhang
    •  & Chih-Kang Shih

  • News & Views |

    Materials that adhere tightly to human tissues can promote healing and boost the sensitivity of biomedical diagnostic devices. An ‘evolving’ gel has been made that synergizes two strategies for forming interfaces with tissue.

    • Sophia J. Bailey
    •  & Eric A. Appel

  • News & Views |

    Ultrathin materials have long been touted as a solution to the problems faced by the ever-growing semiconductor industry. Evidence that 3D chips can be built from 2D semiconductors suggests that the hype was justified.

    • Tania Roy

  • Research Briefing |

    Supersolids are long-sought-after quantum materials with two seemingly contradictory features: a rigid solid structure and superfluidity. A triangular-lattice cobaltate material provides evidence for a quantum spin analogue of supersolidity, with an additional giant magnetocaloric effect — discoveries that pave the way for helium-free cooling to temperatures below 1 kelvin with frustrated quantum magnets.

  • Article |

    Monolithic three-dimensional integration of two-dimensional field-effect transistors enables improved integration density and multifunctionality to realize ‘More Moore’ and ‘More than Moore’ technologies.

    • Darsith Jayachandran
    • , Rahul Pendurthi
    •  & Saptarshi Das

  • Article |

    Evidence for a quantum magnetic analogue of a supersolid appears in a recently synthesized antiferromagnet showing a strong magnetocaloric effect of the spin supersolid phase with potential for applications in sub-kelvin refrigeration.

    • Junsen Xiang
    • , Chuandi Zhang
    •  & Gang Su

  • Nature Podcast |

    We highlight some of the Nature Briefing’s stories from the end of 2023, including a polar bear fur-inspired sweater, efforts to open OSIRIS-REx’s sample canister, and a dinosaur’s last dinner.

    • Benjamin Thompson
    • , Noah Baker
    •  & Flora Graham

  • News & Views |

    The integration of non-silicon semiconductors into systems on chips is needed for advanced power and sensing technologies. A semiconducting graphene ‘buffer’ layer grown on silicon carbide is a step on this path.

    • Francesca Iacopi
    •  & Andrea C. Ferrari

  • Research Briefing |

    High-entropy ceramics can be transformative for several applications, but the development of this class of materials is limited by costly and time-consuming experimental processes. The disordered enthalpy–entropy descriptor is a mathematical formula that accelerates the computational discovery of synthesizable high-entropy ceramics, and has already guided the synthesis of nine new high-entropy carbonitrides and borides.

  • Article |

    A HfNbTiVAl10 alloy shows tensile ductility and ultrahigh yield strength from the addition of aluminium to a HfNbTiV alloy, resulting in a negative mixing enthalpy solid solution, which promotes strength and favours formation of hierarchical chemical fluctuations.

    • Zibing An
    • , Ang Li
    •  & Xiaodong Han

  • Article
    | Open Access

    DEED captures the balance between entropy gains and costs, allowing the correct classification of functional synthesizability of multicomponent ceramics, regardless of chemistry and structure, and provides an array of potential new candidates, ripe for experimental discoveries.

    • Simon Divilov
    • , Hagen Eckert
    •  & Stefano Curtarolo

  • Article |

    We report atomic observations of six incoherent twin boundary configurations and structural transitions in diamond at room temperature, showing a dislocation-mediated mechanism different from metallic systems and shedding new light on grain boundary behaviour.

    • Ke Tong
    • , Xiang Zhang
    •  & Yongjun Tian

  • News & Views Forum |

    A transistor made from atomically thin materials mimics the way in which connections between neurons are strengthened by activity. Two perspectives reveal why physicists and neuroscientists share equal enthusiasm for this feat of engineering.

    • Frank H. L. Koppens
    • , James B. Aimone
    •  & Frances S. Chance

  • Research Briefing |

    Medium- and high-entropy alloys are hugely promising materials in metallurgy and catalysis, but their atomic-scale structure — and how that relates to their properties — is not well understood. A powerful method is beginning to reveal their secrets, with hopes for engineering better materials in the future.

  • Research Briefing |

    Linking biological tissues with electronic devices is challenging owing to the softness of tissues and their arbitrary shapes and sizes. An innovative water-responsive, supercontractile polymer film, inspired by spider silk, allows the construction of soft, stretchable and shape-adaptive tissue–electronic interfaces.

  • Article |

    We establish a spin nematic phase in the square-lattice iridate Sr2IrO4 and find a complete breakdown of coherent magnon excitations at short-wavelength scales, suggesting a many-body quantum entanglement in the antiferromagnetic state.

    • Hoon Kim
    • , Jin-Kwang Kim
    •  & B. J. Kim

  • Article |

    Water-responsive supercontractile polymer films composed of poly(ethylene oxide) and poly(ethylene glycol)-α-cyclodextrin inclusion complex contract by more than 50% of their original length within seconds after wetting and become soft and stretchable hydrogel thin films that can be used in bioelectronic interfaces.

    • Junqi Yi
    • , Guijin Zou
    •  & Xiaodong Chen

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