Materials science articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is interest in the development of mussel inspired materials; however, this requires an understanding of the materials. Here, the authors report on an investigation into the properties of mussel cuticle from different species that challenges conventional wisdom about particle filled composites.

    • Christophe A. Monnier
    • , Daniel G. DeMartini
    •  & J. Herbert Waite

  • Article
    | Open Access

    One-dimensional materials such as carbon nanotubes have many applications, but not all of their properties can be described in the same way as for conventional media. Here, the authors devise a method to measure the complex optical susceptibility in a 1D nanomaterial and demonstrate it for carbon nanotubes.

    • Fengrui Yao
    • , Can Liu
    •  & Kaihui Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exactly how hydrogen renders metals brittle is still unclear, and it remains a challenge to predict component failure due to hydrogen embrittlement. Here, the authors identify a class of grain boundaries in a nickel superalloy that deflects propagating cracks and improves alloy resistance to hydrogen.

    • John P. Hanson
    • , Akbar Bagri
    •  & Michael J. Demkowicz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stromal-tumour interactions play an important role in pancreatic cancer progression. Here, they describe the development of a tumour microenvironment-responsive gold nanoparticle system incorporating all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) and siRNA against heat shock protein 47 (HSP47), for use in pancreatic cancer treatment.

    • Xuexiang Han
    • , Yiye Li
    •  & Guangjun Nie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The atomistic behaviour of nanocatalysts still remains largely unknown. Here, the authors reveal and explore reactions of nm-sized clusters of 14 technologically important metals in carbon nano test tubes using time-series imaging by atomically-resolved transmission electron microscopy.

    • Kecheng Cao
    • , Thilo Zoberbier
    •  & Andrei N. Khlobystov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A magnetic material combining both low losses and strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) was so far missing in the field of magnon-spintronics. The authors here report on Bismuth doped YIG nanometer thick films showing both PMA and low magnetic losses for ultra-thin PMA materials.

    • Lucile Soumah
    • , Nathan Beaulieu
    •  & Abdelmadjid Anane

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metal-support interaction plays an important role in heterogeneous catalysis, but silica has been rarely reported as an effective support to create active metal-support interfaces for promoting catalytic reactions. Here, the authors discover that Cu/SiO2 interface creates an exceptional effect to promote catalytic hydrogenation of esters.

    • Chaofa Xu
    • , Guangxu Chen
    •  & Nanfeng Zheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The “storage” of sunlight as a chemical fuel can provide renewable on-demand energy, although current earth-abundant materials usually show low activities. Here, authors construct a carbon nitride material whose half-metallicity and micro grid resonance structure boost light-driven H2 evolution.

    • Gang Zhou
    • , Yun Shan
    •  & Xinglong Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solar-to-chemical CO2 reduction provides a means to use light’s energy for CO2 removal and upgrading to useful products, although this photochemical conversion is challenging. Here, authors construct a Europium-containing metal-organic framework that selectively converts CO2 to formate with light.

    • Zhi-Hao Yan
    • , Ming-Hao Du
    •  & Lan-Sun Zheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Manipulation of paramagnetic microparticles can be exploited for drug delivery. Here the authors manipulate a swarm of such particles and control its shape with a magnetic field so that it can elongate reversibly, split into smaller swarms and thus be guided through a maze with multiple parallel channels.

    • Jiangfan Yu
    • , Ben Wang
    •  & Li Zhang

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Active matter systems are made up of self-driven components which extract energy from their surroundings to generate mechanical work. Here the authors review the subfield of active nematics and provide a comparison between theoretical findings and the corresponding experimental realisations.

    • Amin Doostmohammadi
    • , Jordi Ignés-Mullol
    •  & Francesc Sagués

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Large mechanocaloric effects are disclosed in lithium-ion superionic conductors at room temperature. These occur in the absence of any structural phase transition, which is beneficial from a practical point of view, and are related to stress-induced variations in the ionic conductivity.

    • Arun K. Sagotra
    • , Dewei Chu
    •  & Claudio Cazorla

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High temperature perpendicular ferroelectricity in nano thin films is crucial for miniaturization of electronic devices. Here the authors show the presence of stable and switchable out-of-plane ferroelectricity in tetragonal BiFeO3 thin films at the two-dimensional limit and 370% tunneling electroresistance in ferroelectric tunnel junctions.

    • H. Wang
    • , Z. R. Liu
    •  & J. S. Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Two-dimensional (2D) bismuth oxyselenide crystals with suitable electronic band-gap and ultrahigh carrier mobility enable near-infrared photodetection. Here, the authors report an infrared photodetector based on 2D-bismuth oxyselenide with high responsivity, ultrafast photoresponse of ~ 1 ps at room temperature and a detectable frequency limit of up to 500 GHz.

    • Jianbo Yin
    • , Zhenjun Tan
    •  & Hailin Peng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The knowledge of the electronic structure of composite material is essential for tailoring their properties. The authors introduce a method based on standing wave angle-resolved hard X-ray photoemission to determine the element- and momentum-resolved electronic band structure simultaneously.

    • Slavomír Nemšák
    • , Mathias Gehlmann
    •  & Charles S. Fadley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the fracture toughness of metallic glasses remains challenging. Here, the authors show that a fictive temperature controls an abrupt mechanical toughening transition in metallic glasses, and can explain the scatter in previously reported fracture toughness data.

    • Jittisa Ketkaew
    • , Wen Chen
    •  & Jan Schroers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in antiferromagnets is intriguing and requires further understanding. Here the authors report large AHE in a chiral-lattice antiferromagnet CoNb3S6 of which the origin can be due to complex magnetic texture or broken time-reversal symmetry on the electronic band structure.

    • Nirmal J. Ghimire
    • , A. S. Botana
    •  & J. F. Mitchell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides are an ideal platform to investigate the underlying physics of strongly bound excitons in low dimensions. Here, the authors demonstrate the formation of a bosonic condensate driven by excitons in two-dimensional MoSe2 strongly coupled to light in a solid-state resonator.

    • Max Waldherr
    • , Nils Lundt
    •  & Christian Schneider

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fischer–Tropsch synthesis (FTS) is theoretically limited by Anderson–Schulz–Flory (ASF) law. Here, the authors successfully tune the selectivity of products from diesel-range hydrocarbons to gasoline-range hydrocarbons in FTS by controlling the crystallite sizes of confined cobalt, and modify the ASF law.

    • Qingpeng Cheng
    • , Ye Tian
    •  & Xingang Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Triply degenerate point (TP) fermions have been reported in MoP but the TPs are far below the Fermi level. Here, Guo et al. predict and verify the possible existence of TP fermions in trigonal layered PtBi2, where the TP points are close to the Fermi level.

    • Wenshuai Gao
    • , Xiangde Zhu
    •  & Mingliang Tian

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Balancing the carrier selectivity and extraction by the selective contacts is of vital importance to the performance of the nanowire solar cells. Here Oener et al. employ a permanent local gate to overcome this tradeoff and substantially increase the open-circuit voltage by 335 mV.

    • Sebastian Z. Oener
    • , Alessandro Cavalli
    •  & Erik C. Garnett

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many predicted topological quasi-particles still await experimental discovery. Here, Horio et al. reveal the existence of two-dimensional type-II Dirac fermions in the high-temperature superconductor La1.77Sr0.23CuO4, promoting layered oxides as promising topological materials.

    • M. Horio
    • , C. E. Matt
    •  & J. Chang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Energy conversion of light into mechanical work is of fundamental interest for a wide range of applications, but the development of efficient light responsive polymers is challenging. Here the authors demonstrate photoswitchable  glass transition temperatures contribute to the photomechanical bending in a crosslinked azobenzene polymer.

    • Youfeng Yue
    • , Yasuo Norikane
    •  & Emiko Koyama

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanowire networks with memristive properties are promising for neuromorphic applications. Here, the authors observe the formation of a preferred conduction pathway which uses the lowest possible energy to get through the network and could be exploited for the design of optimal brain-inspired devices.

    • Hugh G. Manning
    • , Fabio Niosi
    •  & John J. Boland

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bacteria communicate and organize via quorum sensing which is determined by biochemical processes. Here the authors aim to reproduce this behaviour in a system of synthetic active particles whose motion is induced by an external beam which is in turn controlled by a feedback-loop which mimics quorum sensing.

    • Tobias Bäuerle
    • , Andreas Fischer
    •  & Clemens Bechinger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solvents play important roles in chemical transformations, but isolating products from solvents is cumbersome and energy-consuming. Here, the authors develop promising alternatives by anchoring the solvent moieties onto porous materials for creating solvation environments in heterogeneous catalysts for efficient biomass conversion.

    • Qi Sun
    • , Sai Wang
    •  & Feng-Shou Xiao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Functionalisation of conjugated polymers is essential for performance in many applications, yet there are limited approaches to achieve this. Here the authors developed a method for the direct postpolymerisation modification of the aromatic backbone of conjugated polymers and used them to create multifunctional semiconducting nanoparticles.

    • Adam Creamer
    • , Christopher S. Wood
    •  & Martin Heeney

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The sensing capability of nanometric transducers designed for label-free single molecule detection has been limited by the small number of recognition elements. Here, the authors demonstrate a millimetre-sized field effect transistor capable of selective single-molecule Immunoglobulin-G detection.

    • Eleonora Macchia
    • , Kyriaki Manoli
    •  & Luisa Torsi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polynuclear metal-organic coordination complexes are often inaccessible by traditional synthetic chemistry methods. Here, the authors use on-surface supramolecular chemistry to form a planar trinuclear Fe complex, in which an accumulation of electrons around the positive mixed-valence polynuclear centre suggests a catalytically active core.

    • Cornelius Krull
    • , Marina Castelli
    •  & Agustin Schiffrin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Though memristors can potentially emulate neuron and synapse functionality, useful signal energy is lost to Joule heating. Here, the authors demonstrate neuro-transistors with a pseudo-memcapacitive gate that actively process signals via energy-efficient capacitively-coupled neural networks.

    • Zhongrui Wang
    • , Mingyi Rao
    •  & J. Joshua Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamonds are used for quantum sensing but NV centers are not sensitive to parameters such as temperature, pressure and biomolecules. Here the authors propose a scheme based on a magnetic nanoparticle docked responsive hydrogel which acts as a transducer between the particles and the diamond.

    • Ting Zhang
    • , Gang-Qin Liu
    •  & Quan Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The nature and stability of carbon dioxide under extreme conditions relevant to the Earth’s mantle is still under debate, in view of its possible role within the deep carbon cycle. Here, the authors perform high-pressure experiments providing evidence that polymeric crystalline CO2 is stable under megabaric conditions.

    • Kamil F. Dziubek
    • , Martin Ende
    •  & Ronald Miletich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Water electrolysis provides a potential means to large-scale renewable fuel generation, although sluggish oxygen evolution kinetics challenges progress. Here, authors report on Ruddlesden–Popper oxides as active oxygen evolution electrocatalysts that provide impetus for overcoming kinetic barriers.

    • Robin P. Forslund
    • , William G. Hardin
    •  & Keith J. Stevenson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Complex assembly pathways often involve transient, partly-formed intermediates that are challenging to characterize. Here, the authors present a simple and rapid spectroscopic thermal hysteresis method for mapping the energy landscapes of supramolecular assembly.

    • Robert W. Harkness V
    • , Nicole Avakyan
    •  & Anthony K. Mittermaier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bringing together p- and n-type monolayers of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides results in the formation of atomically thin pn junctions. Here, the authors laterally manipulate carrier density to create a WSe2 pn homojunction on a supporting ferroelectric BiFeO3 substrate.

    • Jhih-Wei Chen
    • , Shun-Tsung Lo
    •  & Chung-Lin Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mackinawite is commonly assumed to be the first solid phase in the iron sulfide system. Here, the authors report the existence of a highly reactive nanocrystalline solid phase that is a necessary precursor to the formation of mackinawite.

    • Adriana Matamoros-Veloza
    • , Oscar Cespedes
    •  & Liane G. Benning

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The interplay between nematic, antiferromagnetic order and superconductivity in the iron pnictide superconductors remains obscured. Here, Wang et al. demonstrate well-separated nematic and Neel transition temperatures near optimal superconductivity in NaFe1−xNixAs and uncover local distortions which could account for rotational symmetry breaking common in iron pnictides.

    • Weiyi Wang
    • , Yu Song
    •  & Pengcheng Dai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stimuli-responsive porous materials are attractive for a range of applications, but each material typically exhibits only one type of transformation. Here, the authors report on a metal–organic material that exhibits six distinct phases as a result of four types of structural transformation in response to different stimuli.

    • Mohana Shivanna
    • , Qing-Yuan Yang
    •  & Michael J. Zaworotko

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