Materials science articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    To date, experimental demonstrations of PT-symmetric systems have been restricted to one dimension. Here, the authors experimentally realize and characterize a two-dimensional PT-symmetric system using photonic lattice waveguides with judiciously designed refractive index landscape and an alternating loss distribution.

    • Mark Kremer
    • , Tobias Biesenthal
    •  & Alexander Szameit

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While the conversion of greenhouse CO2 to chemical fuels offers a promising renewable energy technology, there is a dire need for new materials. Here, authors report the largest CO2 photocathode search using a first-principles approach to identify both known and unreported candidate photocatalysts.

    • Arunima K. Singh
    • , Joseph H. Montoya
    •  & Kristin A. Persson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Organic–inorganic metal halide perovskite solar cells have been under the spotlight but what happens in the working solar cell device at the nanoscale remains elusive. Here Kim et al. show that light and voltage bias can induce strain and structural variation which may cause J–V scan hysteresis.

    • Dohyung Kim
    • , Jae Sung Yun
    •  & Jan Seidel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The incomplete nature and undefined structure of the existing catalysis research data has prevented comprehensive knowledge extraction. Here, the authors report a novel meta-analysis method that identifies correlations between a catalyst’s physico-chemical properties and its performance in a particular reaction.

    • Roman Schmack
    • , Alexandra Friedrich
    •  & Ralph Kraehnert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fuel cells are promising for converting fuel into electricity, but rely on development of high-performance catalysts for oxygen reduction. Here the authors report a highly durable platinum-trimer decorated cobalt-palladium catalyst with low platinum loading for electrocatalysis of oxygen reduction.

    • Sheng Dai
    • , Jyh-Pin Chou
    •  & Tsan-Yao Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Graphene oxide (GO) dispersions may be used as starting materials for graphene-based architectures. Here, a malleable and versatile dough state of GO is discovered, completing the GO–water continuum, which can be diluted or converted to glassy GO or graphene solids without long-range stacking order with enhanced mechanical and electrochemical properties

    • Che-Ning Yeh
    • , Haiyue Huang
    •  & Jiaxing Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Infrared-light-induced carrier transfer is a key technology for ‘invisible’ optical devices, but making materials with the right properties remains a challenge. Here, the authors fabricate a clear and colourless material which converts infrared light to an electrical signal or energy based on a localized surface plasmon resonance, with implications for the development of invisible optical devices.

    • Masanori Sakamoto
    • , Tokuhisa Kawawaki
    •  & Toshiharu Teranishi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    All-polymer solar cells have shown high efficiencies but the ultrafast charge transfer processes are less known. Here Wang et al. show that polaron pairs play vital role facilitating the hole transfer, which is quite different from the exciton dominated pathway in polymer-fullerene blends.

    • Rui Wang
    • , Yao Yao
    •  & Min Xiao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A computationally efficient description of ice-water systems at the mesoscopic scale is challenging due to system size and timescale limitations. Here the authors develop a machine-learned coarse-grained water model to elucidate the ice nucleation process much more efficiently than previous models.

    • Henry Chan
    • , Mathew J. Cherukara
    •  & Subramanian K. R. S. Sankaranarayanan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electron correlation normally makes electrons less mobile, but it is still not clear when correlation becomes very strong in Dirac semimetals. Here, Fujioka et al. report a very high electron mobility exceeding 60,000 cm2V−1s−1 in correlated Dirac semimetal of perovskite CaIrO3, due to the enhanced electron correlation nearby the Mott transition.

    • J. Fujioka
    • , R. Yamada
    •  & Y. Tokura

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plant-inspired osmotic actuation has been proposed as a competitive actuation strategy yet reversibility is still an open issue hampering its implementation in soft robotics. Here the authors show a low input voltage reversible osmotic actuation strategy based on the electrosorption of ions on flexible electrodes.

    • Indrek Must
    • , Edoardo Sinibaldi
    •  & Barbara Mazzolai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exploring the ground state of two-dimensional (2D) magnetic systems enriches the fundamental understanding of magnetism and boosts the applications. The authors here show the suppression of magnetic order and 2D XY behavior in XXZ-type antiferromagnet NiPS3 when approaching the monolayer limit by Raman spectroscopy.

    • Kangwon Kim
    • , Soo Yeon Lim
    •  & Hyeonsik Cheong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thanks to their versatile redox behaviors, octahedral molecular sieves show promise in a range of electrochemical applications. Here the authors report a hexagonal polymorph of tungsten trioxide, an octahedral molecular sieve that exhibits fast proton (de)insertion for electrochromic devices.

    • Julie Besnardiere
    • , Binghua Ma
    •  & David Portehault

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tectonic faults weaken during slip in order to accelerate and produce earthquakes. Here the authors show a mechanism for weakening faults through the transformation of quartz to amorphous nanoparticulate wear powders that lubricate friction experiments, and transform back to quartz under geologic conditions.

    • Christie D. Rowe
    • , Kelsey Lamothe
    •  & Stefano Aretusini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The attribution of negative longitudinal magnetoresistance (NLMR) in Weyl metals to a chiral anomaly is already challenged. Here, NLMR resembling that of Weyl metals is demonstrated in a non-Weyl-metal GaAs quantum well originating from different types of disorder.

    • Jing Xu
    • , Meng K. Ma
    •  & Wai-Kwong Kwok

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanism of lithium storage in graphenic carbon remains a fundamental question to be addressed. Here the authors employ suitable bilayer graphene foam to investigate various physiochemical phenomena of lithium intercalation and propose a storage model.

    • Kemeng Ji
    • , Jiuhui Han
    •  & Yutaka Oyama

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Designing mechanical metamaterials is challenging because of the large number of non-periodic constituent elements. Here, the authors develop an approach to design arbitrarily shaped metamaterials that is more computationally efficient by six orders of magnitude compared to other approaches.

    • Lucas A. Shaw
    • , Frederick Sun
    •  & Jonathan B. Hopkins

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ice-VII, the densest phase of ice, has been expected to exist only under extreme conditions, such as in Earth’s deep mantle. Shin et al. show spectroscopic evidence that ice-VII-like structures can also be found in water confined in the nanomeniscus between packed nanoparticles at ambient conditions.

    • Dongha Shin
    • , Jonggeun Hwang
    •  & Wonho Jhe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Contact charging of insulators is a significant problem for various industries, such as plastics, electronics, and space. Here the authors gain spatial and temporal control of discharge of triboelectrically charged polymers upon illumination of a set of common organic dyes.

    • S. Doruk Cezan
    • , Atakan A. Nalbant
    •  & Bilge Baytekin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The discovery of thermodynamically stable thermoelectric materials for power generation has relied on empirical methods that were not effective. Here, the authors apply the inverse design approach to identify and experimentally realize TaFeSb-based half Heuslers with high thermoelectric performance.

    • Hangtian Zhu
    • , Jun Mao
    •  & Zhifeng Ren

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electric field controlled magnetism provides an energy efficient way for the operations in the spintronic devices. Here the authors show strain induced, reversible, nonvolatile electric field control of magnetization and magnetoresistance in a magnetic tunnel junction on a ferroelectric substrate at room temperature and zero magnetic field.

    • Aitian Chen
    • , Yan Wen
    •  & Yonggang Zhao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stimuli-responsive microstructures are important in soft robotics and biosciences, but water compatible materials to fabricate 3D structures are scarce. Here, the authors demonstrate pNIPAM based hetero-microstructures with substantially different material parameters by variation of the local exposure dose in 3D laser lithography.

    • Marc Hippler
    • , Eva Blasco
    •  & Martin Bastmeyer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Enzymatic reactions caused by neutrophils can cause the elevation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in tumour tissue, Here, the authors, inspired by the neutrophils, design and test a synthetic cascade reaction which turns ROS into singlet oxygen and demonstrate the application of the designed nanoparticle

    • Qing Wu
    • , Zhigang He
    •  & Qigang Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Voltage control of spin-orbit torques (SOTs) provides additional degrees of freedom for spinmemory and -logic applications. Here the authors demonstrate a large voltage control of direction as well as amount of current-induced spin accumulation at the heavy metal/ferromagnet interface and effectively tune the SOTs in a Pt/Co/GdOx heterostructure.

    • Rahul Mishra
    • , Farzad Mahfouzi
    •  & Hyunsoo Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lead-halide perovskite are an interesting material platform for light-emitting devices but the underlying lasing mechanism is still disputed. Here, Schlaus et al. use time-resolved spectroscopy of CsPbBr3 nanowires to show that lasing results from stimulated emission of an electron-hole plasma.

    • Andrew P. Schlaus
    • , Michael S. Spencer
    •  & X.-Y. Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conflicting mechanisms have been proposed to explain the sub-bandgap turn-on behaviour of heterojunction organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Here, by probing and modifying the OLED heterojunction, the authors show that band-to-band recombination is the most likely radiative recombination process.

    • Sebastian Engmann
    • , Adam J. Barito
    •  & David J. Gundlach

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solution-phase welding of nanoparticles to form larger structures typically requires that the particles are the same type, limiting the diversity of possible products. Here, the authors report a welding process between gold and chalcogenide nanoparticles in dispersion that leads to asymmetric hybrid nanoparticles with two distinct domains.

    • Zhiqi Huang
    • , Zhi-Jian Zhao
    •  & Zhihong Nie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The observation of magnetic field dependence of defects hosted in hBN has been elusive so far. Here, the authors perform an investigation of spin-related effects in the optical emission from hBN defects, and observe a magnetic field dependence in the intensity of the photoluminescence spectrum.

    • Annemarie L. Exarhos
    • , David A. Hopper
    •  & Lee C. Bassett

  • Article
    | Open Access

    π-magnetism in graphene systems has been predicted but remains an experimental challenge. Here the authors report the discovery of unpaired electron spins localized in certain sites of graphene nanoribbons, and the measurement of their coupling by inducing singlet-triplet excitations with a scanning tunneling microscope.

    • Jingcheng Li
    • , Sofia Sanz
    •  & Jose Ignacio Pascual

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Topological defects in liquid crystals can drive the assembly of colloidal inclusions. Here the authors place water droplets of different sizes in a larger nematic liquid crystal drop and observe the formation and self-assembly of fractal colloidal structures.

    • Nikita V. Solodkov
    • , Jung-uk Shim
    •  & J. Cliff Jones

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electric fields can produce strains in soft elastomers but a generalizable method for changing the Gaussian curvature has not been devised. Here the authors demonstrate voltage-tunable shape morphing using a spatially inhomogeneous electric field generated by electrodes incorporated between elastomer layers.

    • Ehsan Hajiesmaili
    •  & David R. Clarke

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Materials exhibiting room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) with short afterglow are desirable for bio-medical applications. Here the authors synthesise a library of compounds with tunable RTP properties, embedding carbon nanodots in non-toxic alkaline-earth carbonate, sulphate and oxalate hosts.

    • David C. Green
    • , Mark A. Holden
    •  & Fiona C. Meldrum

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Weak hybridization of two-dimensional metallic materials with their substrates plays a crucial role in charge transfer and doping characteristics. Here, the authors report heavy doping of monolayer 1H-TaS2 synthesized on Au(111) by ab-initio calculations and STM/STS experiments.

    • Bin Shao
    • , Andreas Eich
    •  & Tim O. Wehling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors report an approach for creating various acoustic wavefronts in free space by using soft gradient-index porous metasurfaces. These flat lenses generate steered planar, focused spherical and helical ultrasonic beams in water by manipulating the spatial distribution of the material porosity.

    • Yabin Jin
    • , Raj Kumar
    •  & Thomas Brunet

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Broadband photodetectors for various applications are in high demand, however, often suffering from non-linearities at high power densities. Here, a reduced strontium titanate based photodetector exhibiting linear response up to 1235 W/cm2 is presented not achieved by other broadband photodetectors.

    • Xiaowei Lu
    • , Peng Jiang
    •  & Xinhe Bao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Organic luminescent materials are often used in modern technologies, but aggregation induced quenching caused by planar aromatic structures hampers their applicability. Here, the authors demonstrate a facile co-assembly method for luminescent cocrystals and protection with hydrophilic PEO chains which allow good dispersibility in water.

    • Yinjuan Huang
    • , Jie Xing
    •  & Qichun Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Shear-induced grain boundary migration at the atomic level is still not well understood. Here the authors combine in situ shear testing experiments and molecular dynamic simulations to reveal the atomistic mechanism of disconnection-mediated GB migration in different gold nanostructures.

    • Qi Zhu
    • , Guang Cao
    •  & Scott X. Mao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanism underlying the superlubricity of tetrahedral amorphous carbon coatings lubricated with organic friction modifiers is still under debate. Here the authors combine experiments and simulations to reveal that superlubricious layers form due the mechano-chemical decomposition of friction modifiers.

    • Takuya Kuwahara
    • , Pedro A. Romero
    •  & Michael Moseler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The high speed switching and energy efficiency nature grant all-optical switching (AOS) great potential for future photonic integrated spintronic devices. Here the authors demonstrate the combination of AOS and domain wall propagation in Pt/Co/Gd synthetic ferrimagnetic racetrack for applications in photonic memory technologies.

    • M. L. M. Lalieu
    • , R. Lavrijsen
    •  & B. Koopmans

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The demonstration of nature-inspired embodied control logic in simple autonomous material systems is of significant interest in applications such as soft robots and drug delivery. Here, the authors demonstrate 3D printed self-actuating structures with control logic in response to suitable stimuli.

    • Yijie Jiang
    • , Lucia M. Korpas
    •  & Jordan R. Raney

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Antimony selenide is a promising thin film solar cell absorber material in which grain orientation is crucial for high device performance. Here Li et al. grow the material in nanorod arrays along the [001] direction and obtain record high efficiency of 9.2%.

    • Zhiqiang Li
    • , Xiaoyang Liang
    •  & Yaohua Mai

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