Materials science articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reducing particle size of electrode materials to nanoscale dimensions is believed responsible for their enhanced reaction kinetics and electrochemical performance. Here, the authors use in situ transmission electron microscopy to study the dynamic process of the spinel zinc ferrite nanoparticles as a function of size, finding that the intercalation reaction pathway changes below a critical particle size.

    • Jing Li
    • , Qingping Meng
    •  & Eric A. Stach

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biological light-driven ion pumps move ions against a concentration gradient to create a membrane potential, converting sunlight into an osmotic potential. Here, the authors make an artificial ion pump which drives ions thermodynamically uphill against a large concentration gradient upon illumination, which can be used for harvesting solar energy.

    • Kai Xiao
    • , Lu Chen
    •  & Markus Antonietti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent research efforts have aimed at discovering thermoelectric materials with high efficiency in the middle-low temperature range, where a majority of waste heat is lost to the ambient. Here, the authors discover colossal Seebeck coefficient values in metallic copper selenide from 340 K to 400 K.

    • Dogyun Byeon
    • , Robert Sobota
    •  & Tsunehiro Takeuchi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The instability of the host structure of cathode materials and sluggish aluminium ion diffusion are the major challenges facing the Al-ion battery. Here the authors show AlxMnO2·nH2O as a cathode that allows for reversible Al3+ (de)intercalation in an aqueous electrolyte and impressive electrochemical performance for a battery device.

    • Chuan Wu
    • , Sichen Gu
    •  & Jun Lu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fluids may avoid crystallization via an underlying mechanism that remains hotly debated. Teich et al. show that hard polyhedral particles form glass because of the competition of local structural motifs, each of which is prevalent in crystals self-assembled from particles of closely related shapes.

    • Erin G. Teich
    • , Greg van Anders
    •  & Sharon C. Glotzer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The nature of the vibrational modes of amorphous solids is of fundamental interest, but assessing them is challenging due to very long equilibrium times involved. Wang et al. numerically model the localized low-frequency vibrational modes in glasses and show the sensitivity of their populations to glass stability.

    • Lijin Wang
    • , Andrea Ninarello
    •  & Elijah Flenner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) quantum dots (QDs) have promising electronic properties which might be further tailorable by defect engineering. Here the authors describe a room temperature aqueous based synthesis of TMD QDs with controlled defect concentration, and demonstrate the correlation between defect concentration and biomedical activity.

    • Xianguang Ding
    • , Fei Peng
    •  & David Tai Leong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photonic crystals can steer, shape, and sculpture the flow of photons. Here, the author fabricate a deep-subwavelength photonic crystal slab that supports ultra-confined phonon polaritons, by patterning a nanoscale hole array in h-BN.

    • F. J. Alfaro-Mozaz
    • , S. G. Rodrigo
    •  & A. Y. Nikitin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    CO2 conversion to reduced products provides a use for greenhouse gases, but reaction complexity stymies mechanistic studies. Here, authors present a microkinetic model for CO2 and CO reduction on copper, based on ab initio simulations, to elucidate pH’s impact on competitive reaction pathways.

    • Xinyan Liu
    • , Philomena Schlexer
    •  & Karen Chan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Label-free molecular-level quantification of MicroRNA (miRNA) remains challenging. Here, the authors develop a new surface plasmon resonance sensor based on two-dimensional nanomaterial of antimonene for the specific label-free detection of clinically relevant biomarkers such as miRNA-21 and miRNA-155.

    • Tianyu Xue
    • , Weiyuan Liang
    •  & Qiaoliang Bao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Core/shell semiconductor nanocrystals have advantageous optoelectronic properties, which depend on the shell architecture. Here the authors show that by reducing the growth rate of ZnS shells on ZnSe nanorods the shell morphology can be tuned from flat to islands-like to helical

    • Botao Ji
    • , Yossef E. Panfil
    •  & Uri Banin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding what happens to the liquid in melt pools during welding and metal-based additive manufacturing remains a challenge. Here, the authors directly image internal melt pool dynamics using synchrotron radiation to show surface tension affects flow speed, orientation and surface turbulence.

    • Lee Aucott
    • , Hongbiao Dong
    •  & Helen. V. Atkinson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Development of fuel cells and metal-air batteries is hindered by electrocatalyst performance, which can be enhanced with uniform and atomically dispersed active sites. Here the authors report an iron-based electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction in cathodes for a zinc-air battery and a hydrogen-air fuel cell.

    • Yuanjun Chen
    • , Shufang Ji
    •  & Yadong Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Control of spin wave transport in magnonic crystals is vital for magnonic devices. Here the authors show low-loss spin-wave manipulation in nanometer thick magnonic crystals of discrete YIG stripes separated by air or CoFeB filled grooves exhibiting tunable bandgaps of 50–200 MHz.

    • Huajun Qin
    • , Gert-Jan Both
    •  & Sebastiaan van Dijken

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Weaker ferritic/matensitic steels rather than stronger austenitic steels are usually candidates for nuclear reactors since they do not easily swell under irradiation. Here, the authors make an ultrastrong lanthanum-doped nanocrystalline austenitic steel that is thermally stable and radiation-tolerant.

    • Congcong Du
    • , Shenbao Jin
    •  & Tongde Shen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Atomically-clean interfaces are required in heterostructures. Here, authors report a method for fast and parallel removal of contaminants from fully-formed heterostructures, including sample intentionally exposed to polymers and solvent, achieving room temperature mobility over 180,000 cm2/Vs for graphene.

    • D. G. Purdie
    • , N. M. Pugno
    •  & A. Lombardo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Vertical charge transport through homogeneous WSe2 layers can be effectively tuned by the layer number and contacting metals deposited. Here, the authors report WSe2 vertical diodes with superior device performance characteristics based on variable WSe2 thickness and gadolinium and platinum contact metals.

    • Ghazanfar Nazir
    • , Hakseong Kim
    •  & Suyong Jung

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Water-based semiconducting polymer nanoparticles are eco-friendly and non-toxic but their performance suffers from the surfactants. Here Xie et al. design an approach to minimize the amount of residual surfactant in these nanoparticles and make high-efficiency and stability solar cells.

    • Chen Xie
    • , Thomas Heumüller
    •  & Christoph J. Brabec

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To realize the potential of soft hybrid (inorganic-organic) materials for thermoelectrics, the underlying transport-related physics must be understood. Here, the authors extend the Kang-Synder framework with experimental analysis to gain insight on the thermoelectric transport in hybrid materials.

    • Pawan Kumar
    • , Edmond W. Zaia
    •  & Kedar Hippalgaonkar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Developing new technologies for the neuromodulation of the vagus nerve can enable therapeutic strategies for body weight control in obese patients. Here, the authors present a battery-free self-powered implantable vagus nerve stimulation system that electrically responds to stomach movement.

    • Guang Yao
    • , Lei Kang
    •  & Xudong Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The methylammonium lead halide perovskites have shown excellent optoelectronic properties but the field-effect transistors are much less studied. Here Yu et al. synthesize micrometer-thin crystals of perovskites with low surface contamination and make ambipolar transistor devices with high mobilities.

    • Weili Yu
    • , Feng Li
    •  & Aram Amassian

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hybrid halide perovskite single crystals show excellent optoelectronic properties but their small size and large thickness limit their application. Herein Liu et al. grow large area ultrathin flexible crystalline membrane of layered perovskite and demonstrate high detectivity in the flexible photosensors.

    • Yucheng Liu
    • , Yunxia Zhang
    •  & Shengzhong(Frank) Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Predicting plastic deformation in crystals remains challenging owing to the nonlinear nature of stochastic avalanches involved, which resemble the critical phenomena. Salmenjoki et al. use machine learning to predict plastic deformation and show that it works better for those under large strains.

    • Henri Salmenjoki
    • , Mikko J. Alava
    •  & Lasse Laurson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Previous descriptions of the charge-transfer absorptions in organic solar cells only involve the charge transfer state and the ground state. Here Chen et al. underline that a third state, i.e., the local absorbing state on the donor and/or acceptor, needs to be considered.

    • Xian-Kai Chen
    • , Veaceslav Coropceanu
    •  & Jean-Luc Brédas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrochemical ion intercalation in 2D layered materials is known to occur through the material’s edges, accompanied by frequent structural deformations. Here the authors show that in MoS2 flakes where the edges have been sealed, a reversible and ion-selective intercalation occurs through the top surface via the intrinsic defects.

    • Jinsong Zhang
    • , Ankun Yang
    •  & Yi Cui

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    When translating photovoltaic technology from laboratory to commercial products, low cost, high power conversion efficiency, and high stability (long lifetime) are the three key metrics to consider in addition to other factors, such as low toxicity, low energy payback time, etc. As one of the most promising photovoltaic materials with high efficiency, today organic–inorganic metal halide perovskites draw tremendous attention from fundamental research, but their practical relevance still remains unclear owing to the notorious short device operation time. In this comment, we discuss the stability issue of perovskite photovoltaics and call for standardized protocols for device characterizations that could possibly match the silicon industrial standards.

    • Lei Meng
    • , Jingbi You
    •  & Yang Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magic number cluster with closed shells and increased stability often result from potential energy minimization between attractive atoms or particles. Here, Wang et al. show that such magic number clusters can also result from entropy maximization in colloidal systems with negligible interactions.

    • Junwei Wang
    • , Chrameh Fru Mbah
    •  & Nicolas Vogel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The performance of supported metal nanoparticle catalysts can be tailored by metal-support interactions, but their use in catalyst design is still challenging. Here, the authors develop two-dimensional transition metal carbides as platforms for designing intermetallic compound catalysts that are efficient for light alkane dehydrogenations.

    • Zhe Li
    • , Liang Yu
    •  & Yue Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The discovery of new covalent organic framework (COF) topologies is often led by trial-and-error experiments. Here, the authors present a methodology for high throughput construction of COFs based on a materials genomics strategy and demonstrate the synthesis of the generated 2D and 3D-COFs.

    • Youshi Lan
    • , Xianghao Han
    •  & Chongli Zhong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In label-free biosensing surface functionalisation is a complex issue that can affect sensing performance. Here, the authors report on an electrostatic layer-by-layer technique to functionalize a surface and demonstrate this technique using biotinylated polymer for streptavidin detection in saliva.

    • Stefano Mariani
    • , Valentina Robbiano
    •  & Giuseppe Barillaro

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known about diffusion along metal/ceramic interfaces even though it controls the physical behavior and lifetimes of many devices (including batteries, microelectronics, and jet engines). Here, the authors show that diffusion along a nickel/sapphire interface is abnormally fast due to nickel vacancies and generalise their findings to a wide-range of metal/ceramic systems.

    • Aakash Kumar
    • , Hagit Barda
    •  & David J. Srolovitz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The toughening of layered composite materials during cyclic loading remains poorly understood. Here, the authors introduce an interfacial nanolayer to a polymer-metal-ceramic stack to triple the fracture energy during cyclic loading via nanolayer-induced interfacial bond strengthening and load transfer to the polymer layer.

    • Matthew Kwan
    • , Muriel Braccini
    •  & Ganpati Ramanath

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Self-organization of multi-textured mineral architectures is challenging. Here, the authors control the growth temperature of silica carbonate biomorphs and demonstrated the structure is not limited to orthorhombic carbonates and open a route for creating complex self-organised silica and chalk materials.

    • Gan Zhang
    • , Cristobal Verdugo-Escamilla
    •  & Juan Manuel García-Ruiz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The doping level of cuprate superconductors is usually difficult to determine. Here, Drozdov et al. report spectroscopic studies of in-situ modified Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ, exploring not only the superconducting dome but also the previously inaccessible, non-superconducting regime of the phase diagram, with absolute determination of the doping level.

    • I. K. Drozdov
    • , I. Pletikosić
    •  & T. Valla

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In complex oxides, oxygen octahedra are major structural motifs and their tilts sensitively determine the material’s physical properties. Exploiting Coherent Bragg Rod Analysis enables 3D mapping of complex tilt patterns and reveals the means to control polarization through them in CaTiO3 thin films.

    • Yakun Yuan
    • , Yanfu Lu
    •  & Venkatraman Gopalan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The edge of the thin sheets of two dimensional organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite crystals shows exotic physical properties that remain unexplored. Here Cheng et al. make electronic devices and study their transport properties, photoresponses and humid sensitivities which show large anisotropy.

    • Bin Cheng
    • , Ting-You Li
    •  & Jr-Hau He

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