Nanoscience and technology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Synthesis of nanostructured ceria on green deep eutectic solvent reline is one of the less energy-intensive routes to date. Here, the authors show that the reline solvent plays the role of a latent supramolecular catalyst driving the pre-organization of the reactants, allowing morphology and porosity control.

    • Oliver S. Hammond
    • , Karen J. Edler
    •  & Laura Torrente-Murciano
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pulsed electron beams with ultrafast duration are desirable to study atomic processes occurring over the natural time scales of electronic motion. Here the authors demonstrate the generation of electron pulses down to attosecond time scales by using optical gating and streaking method.

    • M. Kozák
    • , J. McNeur
    •  & P. Hommelhoff
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Aligning the resonances of sets of optical cavities is necessary for advanced photonics and sensing applications. Here, the authors introduce resonant photoelectrochemical etching as a method to collectively and permanently tune the resonant wavelengths of ensembles of resonators on a photonic chip.

    • Eduardo Gil-Santos
    • , Christopher Baker
    •  & Ivan Favero
  • Article
    | Open Access

    A challenge of using 2D materials for nanoelectronic devices is the need for defect-free lattice supporting efficient carrier transport. Here, the authors show theoretically that 2D topological insulators enable high-performance, low-power field-effect transistors without requiring defect-free materials.

    • William G. Vandenberghe
    •  & Massimo V. Fischetti
  • Article
    | Open Access

    A material with a deep melted zone (MZ) but small heat-affected zone (HAZ) is ideal for manufacturing, but improving one zone comes at the expense of the other. Here, the authors resolve this contradiction in metals by adding nanoparticles, which change the metals’ properties in such a way that both expands MZ and minimizes HAZ.

    • Chao Ma
    • , Lianyi Chen
    •  & Xiaochun Li
  • Article
    | Open Access

    How well the linear elastic fracture picture holds at small length scales and systems with reduced dimensionality remains an active area of inquiry. Here authors usein situ electron microscopy to study fracture in MoS2monolayers and report dislocation emission rates greater than expected accompanying crack propagation.

    • Thuc Hue Ly
    • , Jiong Zhao
    •  & Young Hee Lee
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hybrid polariton states originating from the strong coupling of photonic and excitonic states hold promise for control of nonlinear light behaviour. Here, the authors fabricate a microcavity containing organic dye and WS2, featuring hybrid polaritons arising from both Frenkel and Wannier-Mott excitons.

    • Lucas C. Flatten
    • , David M. Coles
    •  & Jason M. Smith
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solid-state emitters enable broadband quantum information storage, but they are affected by decoherence resulting from inhomogeneous broadening. Here the authors suppress this effect via cavity protection at the single photon level in an ensemble of rare-earth ions coupled to a nanophotonic resonator.

    • Tian Zhong
    • , Jonathan M. Kindem
    •  & Andrei Faraon
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Few-layered black phosphorus offers an infrared bandgap, complementing that of graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides. Here, the authors investigate the thickness- and strain-dependent electronic structure of black phosphorus using polarised infrared spectroscopy.

    • Guowei Zhang
    • , Shenyang Huang
    •  & Hugen Yan
  • Article
    | Open Access

    The development of materials for energy storage hinges on the design of electrodes with large capacity, flexibility, fast charge–discharge rate and long cycling lifetime. Here, the authors develop electrodes based on nitrogen doped graphene with encapsulated Ge quantum dots with yolk-shell architecture.

    • Runwei Mo
    • , David Rooney
    •  & Hui Ying Yang
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasmonic dark modes are promising candidates for lasing applications. Here, Hakalaet al. show lasing at visible wavelengths in dark and bright modes of an array of silver nanoparticles combined with optically pumped dye molecules, opening up a route to utilization of all modes of plasmonic lattices.

    • T. K. Hakala
    • , H. T. Rekola
    •  & P. Törmä
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stacking faults in nanocrystals are generally considered unwelcome structural defects. Here, the authors find that stacking fault tetrahedra in Au exhibit quantized, particle-in-a-box electronic behaviour, revealing a potential synthetic route to decoupled nanoparticles in metal films.

    • Koen Schouteden
    • , Behnam Amin-Ahmadi
    •  & Chris Van Haesendonck
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Molecules can self-assemble to form ordered phases with defined shape and periodicity, but there are a limited set of morphologies reported. Here, the authors have manipulated block copolymer thin films via an iterative assembly process to form a diverse library of morphologies.

    • Atikur Rahman
    • , Pawel W. Majewski
    •  & Kevin G. Yager
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electron-electron interactions in many-body systems may manifest themselves through the fractional quantum Hall effect. Here, the authors perform transport measurements in bilayer graphene, and observe particle-hole symmetric fractional quantum Hall states in theN=2 Landau level.

    • Georgi Diankov
    • , Chi-Te Liang
    •  & David Goldhaber-Gordon
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Precise control of the growth of transition metal dichalcogenides layers in atomically thin van der Waals heterostructures has gained significant attention. Here, the authors report 100% overlapped vertical ReS2/WS2heterostructures by utilizing the twinned growth behaviour of two-dimensional materials.

    • Tao Zhang
    • , Bei Jiang
    •  & Lei Fu
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light-matter interactions with single quantum emitters are generally difficult to measure with both high-resolution and a large field of view. Here, Johlin et al. develop far-field super-resolution fluorescence methods to map near-field emitter-nanostructure interactions over several microns.

    • Eric Johlin
    • , Jacopo Solari
    •  & Erik C. Garnett
  • Article
    | Open Access

    To determine the topological character of a magnetic structure, one has to rely on techniques based on spin magnetism. Here, the authors study chirality-driven orbital moment physics and propose a new experimental protocol for the identification of topological magnetic structure, based on soft X-ray spectroscopy.

    • Manuel dos Santos Dias
    • , Juba Bouaziz
    •  & Samir Lounis
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tunnelling currents through molecular junctions are affected by quantum interference effects, but understanding the factors leading to them remains a challenge. Here the authors show that through-space conjugation in self-assembled monolayers leads to conformation-dependent quantum interference that suppresses conductivity.

    • Marco Carlotti
    • , Andrii Kovalchuk
    •  & Ryan C. Chiechi
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Live cell super-resolution imaging requires a high temporal resolution, which remains a challenge. Here the authors combine photo-activated localization microscopy (PALM) with super-resolution optical fluctuation imaging (SOFI) to achieve high spatiotemporal resolution and quantitative imaging of focal adhesion dynamics.

    • Hendrik Deschout
    • , Tomas Lukes
    •  & Aleksandra Radenovic
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Detection of electric fields, central to chemical and biological processes, has been limited to measurements of current (e.g., electrodes) and secondary reporters (e.g., fluorescent dyes). Here, the authors demonstrate an optical platform capable of imaging electric field dynamics with high spatio-temporal resolution.

    • Jason Horng
    • , Halleh B. Balch
    •  & Feng Wang
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Van der Waals heterostructures offer a platform for harnessing the spin-valley degree of freedom for information processing. Here, the authors transfer optically generated spin-valley polarization from one layer to another in a two-dimensional molybdenum diselenide–tungsten diselenide heterostructure.

    • John R. Schaibley
    • , Pasqual Rivera
    •  & Xiaodong Xu
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electroreduction of CO2 into C2 hydrocarbons and liquid fuels is a promising but challenging energy conversion technology, with copper exhibiting fair selectivity for these products. Here, the authors report that N-doped graphene quantum dots can also catalyze the electrochemical reduction of CO2into multi-carbon hydrocarbons and oxygenates.

    • Jingjie Wu
    • , Sichao Ma
    •  & Pulickel M. Ajayan
  • Article
    | Open Access

    It has been a challenge to characterize microscopic origins of friction at high velocities. Here authors extend atomic force microscopy to develop a dynamic technique combining force sensitivity and spatial resolution and able to probe, at each image pixel, frictional forces at velocities up to several cm per second.

    • Per-Anders Thorén
    • , Astrid S. de Wijn
    •  & David B. Haviland
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Radiative cooling relies on the atmosphere’s transparency window. Here the authors achieve up to 42 °C drops in temperature for low thermal loads under diffuse sunlight by improving the selectivity of the emissivity and the thermal management of their devices.

    • Zhen Chen
    • , Linxiao Zhu
    •  & Shanhui Fan
  • Article
    | Open Access

    The spin Peltier effect produces a temperature difference along the direction of a spin current. Here, the authors use an active thermography technique to visualize the temperature modulation induced by a spin current injected into a magnetic insulator from an adjacent metal.

    • Shunsuke Daimon
    • , Ryo Iguchi
    •  & Ken-ichi Uchida
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conduction in ferroelectric domain walls is now an established phenomenon, yet fundamental aspects of transport physics remain elusive. Here, Campbellet al. report the type, density and mobility of carriers in conducting domain walls in ytterbium manganite using nanoscale Hall effect measurements.

    • M. P. Campbell
    • , J.P.V. McConville
    •  & J. M. Gregg
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Molecular magnets are molecules with an inherent non-zero spin that can exhibit magnetic ordering. Here, the authors show that such molecules can change the many-body ground state of nonmagnetic metals at a functional scale with magnetic phthalocyanines.

    • A. Atxabal
    • , M. Ribeiro
    •  & L. E. Hueso
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hydrogen evolution by water electrolysis is a promising route to 'green energy', but efficiency is still an issue. Here, the authors make mixed organic/inorganic hierarchical nanostructures with high hydrogen evolution activity, identifying synergic effects in the material contributing to enhanced efficiency.

    • Giovanni Valenti
    • , Alessandro Boni
    •  & Francesco Paolucci
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a powerful tool but local control of superconductivity with the STM tip is still lacking. Here, Geet al. show the use of an STM tip to control the local pinning in a superconductor through the heating effect, allowing to manipulate single superconducting vortex at nanoscale.

    • Jun-Yi Ge
    • , Vladimir N. Gladilin
    •  & Victor V. Moshchalkov
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding bimetallic alloy oxidation is key to design of hollow-structured binary oxides and their optimization for applications, e.g., as catalysts. Here the authors combine real-time imaging and chemically-sensitive electron tomography to uncover unexpected complexity in possible morphological outcomes of bimetallic oxidation.

    • Lili Han
    • , Qingping Meng
    •  & Huolin L. Xin
  • Article
    | Open Access

    The performance of graphene field effect transistors is adversely affected by fluctuations in the electrical resistance at the graphene/metal interface. Here, the authors unveil the microscopic origin of such contact noise, highlighting the role of current crowding.

    • Paritosh Karnatak
    • , T. Phanindra Sai
    •  & Arindam Ghosh
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding of charge transfer dynamics is essential to the design of high-performance organic semiconductors for optoelectronic applications. Here, the authors show that excitons, polaron pairs and a long-lived vibrational mode are strongly coupled to each other up to 1 picosecond in polythiophene.

    • Antonietta De Sio
    • , Filippo Troiani
    •  & Christoph Lienau
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Flexible approaches are required for building plasmomechanical devices for tunable optical devices. Here, Roxworthyet al. introduce a plasmonic-nanoelectromechanical systems device where gap plasmon resonators are embedded into arrays of moving silicon nitride nanostructures, yielding thousands of devices per chip.

    • Brian J. Roxworthy
    •  & Vladimir A. Aksyuk
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Controlling the generation of light in nano-scale systems is a challenging task and is of growing importance. Here, Li et al. propose a means of controlling the wavefront of light emanating from a single nano scale emitter by holographic principles using a plasmonic metasurface.

    • Guanhai Li
    • , Brendan P. Clarke
    •  & Nikolay I. Zheludev
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Resolution of classical piezoresponse force microscopy is limited in data acquisition rates and energy scales. Here, Somnath et al. report an approach for rapid probing of ferroelectric switching using direct strain detection of material response to probe bias, enabling spectroscopic imaging at a rate of 3,504 times faster the current state of the art.

    • Suhas Somnath
    • , Alex Belianinov
    •  & Stephen Jesse
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Complex surface micro- and nanostructures can be useful in many device applications, but are challenging in terms of controllability, low cost and high throughput. Here the authors have fabricated quasi 3D structures by the thermal deformation of simple two-dimensional laser-induced patterns.

    • Haoran Zhang
    • , Fengyou Yang
    •  & Qian Liu
  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is no one theoretical model that can explain the stability of all known liganded gold clusters. Here, the authors present a grand unified model, inspired by the quark model of particle physics, which describes gold clusters as combinations of stable triangular Au3(2e) and tetragonal Au4(2e) ‘composite particles’ built from gold atom ‘elementary particles’.

    • Wen Wu Xu
    • , Beien Zhu
    •  & Yi Gao
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carbon-based fibres are at the core of electrically conductive multifunctional fabrics, yet improving the weak interaction between fibres remains a challenge. Here, the authors demonstrate an assembly method where graphene fibres are fused at junctions with record specific electrical and thermal conductivity.

    • Zheng Li
    • , Zhen Xu
    •  & Chao Gao
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Laser beam-induced processing is industrially relevant but often challenging to study in terms of underlying phase transformations. Here authors characterize formation of thin, phase-separated carbon and silicon layers on a silicon carbide substrate by laser-induced melting and solidification.

    • Insung Choi
    • , Hu Young Jeong
    •  & Keon Jae Lee
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors demonstrate functionality for on-chip optical communications via reconfigurable exciton-plasmon interconversion in 200 nm-diameter silver nanowires overlapping onto two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide transistors.

    • Hyun Seok Lee
    • , Dinh Hoa Luong
    •  & Young Hee Lee
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metasurfaces have the potential to be used in imaging systems since they can modify optical wavefronts at subwavelength spatial resolution. Here, Arbabi et al. demonstrate a metasurface lens doublet corrected for monochromatic aberrations, and integrate it with an image sensor to realize a miniature planar camera.

    • Amir Arbabi
    • , Ehsan Arbabi
    •  & Andrei Faraon