Phase transitions and critical phenomena articles within Nature Materials

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  • Research Briefing |

    Electrocaloric effects have not hitherto been experimentally studied at a phase transition created by strain. It is now shown that the continuous transition created by epitaxial strain in strontium titanate films greatly enhances electrocaloric effects over a wide range of temperatures, including room temperature.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrocaloric effects are large in a limited set of materials that display hysteretic first-order phase transitions. Here epitaxial SrTiO3 thin films are strain engineered to achieve anhysteretic second-order phase transitions, with electrocaloric effects enhanced by one order of magnitude over bulk.

    • S. Zhang
    • , J. Deliyore-Ramírez
    •  & N. D. Mathur

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Intense light pulses can induce symmetry breaking, as for the generation of ferroelectricity in SrTiO3. Using ultrafast X-ray diffuse scattering at a free-electron laser, nonlinear phonon interactions that occur on such mid-IR excitation are observed, with a theory for the dynamics presented.

    • M. Fechner
    • , M. Först
    •  & A. Cavalleri

  • Article |

    The rational design of out-of-equilibrium demixing transitions remains challenging. Active fluids are used to control the liquid–liquid phase separation of passive DNA nanostars and establish the activity-based control of the phase diagram.

    • Alexandra M. Tayar
    • , Fernando Caballero
    •  & Zvonimir Dogic

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The two-dimensional layered crystal structure of niobium oxide polymorph T-Nb2O5 exhibits fast Li-ion diffusion that is promising for energy storage applications. Epitaxial growth of single-crystalline T-Nb2O5 thin films with ionic transport channels oriented perpendicular to the surface are now demonstrated.

    • Hyeon Han
    • , Quentin Jacquet
    •  & Stuart S. P. Parkin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors report the emergence of a transient hexatic state during laser-induced transformation between two charge-density wave (CDW) phases in a thin film of the CDW material 1T-TaS2.

    • Till Domröse
    • , Thomas Danz
    •  & Claus Ropers

  • Article |

    Optically detected magnetic resonance of nitrogen vacancy centres in diamond enables the detection of pressure-induced phase transitions, but interpreting their magnetic resonance spectra remains challenging. Here the authors propose implanted silicon vacancy defects in 4H-SiC for in situ magnetic phase detection at high pressures.

    • Jun-Feng Wang
    • , Lin Liu
    •  & Guang-Can Guo

  • News & Views |

    Upon decreasing the electron density in a two-dimensional electronic system to a critical value, a transition should occur from a quantum to a classical regime. An oxide now shows electrical properties marking such a transition.

    • Raymond Ashoori

  • News & Views |

    Scanning tunnelling microscopy experiments reveal a chiral charge density wave order underpinning the anomalous Hall effect in kagome lattice materials. Under pressure this charge order is suppressed, while superconductivity gets a boost.

    • Erik van Heumen

  • Article |

    Superionic conductors present liquid-like ionic diffusivity with applications ranging from energy storage to thermoelectrics. A two-dimensional type I superionic conductor α-KAg3Se2 is now reported and should help to design other materials with tailored ionic conductivities and phase transitions.

    • Alexander J. E. Rettie
    • , Jingxuan Ding
    •  & Mercouri G. Kanatzidis

  • Article |

    Charged colloidal systems undergo fast crystallization under deep supercooling due to a coupled mechanism involving the discrete advancement of the crystal growth front and defect repair inside the recently formed solid phase.

    • Qiong Gao
    • , Jingdong Ai
    •  & Peng Tan

  • Letter |

    Two adjacent quantum time crystals implemented by two magnon condensates in the superfluid B-phase of helium-3 are observed to coherently exchange magnons as a manifestation of the AC Josephson effect, offering insights on the dynamics and interactions between these phases of matter.

    • S. Autti
    • , P. J. Heikkinen
    •  & V. B. Eltsov

  • Article |

    The interstitial ordering in Fe–C alloys is shown to be stabilized by local anharmonicity in strain fields, which substantially reduces the critical C concentration for ordering. C segregation into extended defects predominates over ordering at low C concentrations but sharply decreases at high concentrations.

    • Xie Zhang
    • , Hongcai Wang
    •  & Jörg Neugebauer

  • News & Views |

    Nanoresolved imaging and ultrafast laser excitation are integrated to probe and control a photoinduced hidden state in a strained manganite film.

    • Nan-Lin Wang

  • Article |

    A multi-messenger combination of atomic force microscopy, scanning near-field optical microscopy and magnetic force microscopy demonstrates a strain-modulated photoinduced ferromagnetic metallic state in La2/3Ca1/3MnO3.

    • A. S. McLeod
    • , Jingdi Zhang
    •  & D. N. Basov

  • News & Views |

    A first-order ferroelectric phase transition is driven supercritically in multilayer capacitors of PbSc0.5Ta0.5O3, enabling an electrocaloric response of 5.5 K near room temperature.

    • M. Otoničar
    •  & B. Dkhil

  • Letter |

    Zeolites are industrially useful catalysts, but their synthesis is poorly understood and many predicted structures remain unsynthesized. Machine learning and graph theory are used respectively to mine the literature on zeolite transformations and to predict similar zeolite pairs that may easily be transformed into each other.

    • Daniel Schwalbe-Koda
    • , Zach Jensen
    •  & Rafael Gómez-Bombarelli

  • Article |

    The simultaneous high-pressure and high-temperature phase diagram of two MOFs, ZIF-4 and ZIF-62, is mapped. Crystalline, pressure- and temperature-amorphous, and liquid states are found, while melting temperature is found to decrease with pressure.

    • Remo N. Widmer
    • , Giulio I. Lampronti
    •  & Thomas D. Bennett

  • Editorial |

    Much academic and industrial effort has been devoted to the study of multiferroics, but if related technologies are to have real-world impact, market awareness and reproducibility are also key.

  • News & Views |

    Multiferroic quantum criticality — associated with the merging of two distinct quantum critical points — is explored, with implications for fundamental physics and low-temperature applications.

    • Premala Chandra

  • Article |

    The phenomenology of multiferroic quantum criticality, where both ferroelectric and magnetic order parameters are tuned by quantum fluctuations, is drawn out. Non-thermal tuning parameters such as alloying and strain are explored and material realizations proposed.

    • Awadhesh Narayan
    • , Andrés Cano
    •  & Nicola A. Spaldin

  • Letter |

    A thorough analysis of the optical and transport properties of several two-dimensional organic conductors and insulators with varying on-site correlation strengths and bandwidths led to a quantitative phase diagram for pristine Mott insulators.

    • A. Pustogow
    • , M. Bories
    •  & M. Dressel

  • Letter |

    Monatomic glasses formed by rapidly quenching Sb films from a molten state are shown to work as phase change materials for memory applications at room temperature.

    • Martin Salinga
    • , Benedikt Kersting
    •  & Abu Sebastian

  • Letter |

    In the antiferromagnetic insulator Cr2O3 a strong modulation of the spin conduction with magnetic field near the Néel temperature is measured. By analogy with its charge counterpart, this effect is termed spin colossal magnetoresistance.

    • Zhiyong Qiu
    • , Dazhi Hou
    •  & Eiji Saitoh

  • Review Article |

    The key to exploiting quantum materials for applications is the control of their properties. This Review discusses strategies to externally modify their properties on demand.

    • D. N. Basov
    • , R. D. Averitt
    •  & D. Hsieh

  • Letter |

    Irradiation with a strong terahertz electric-field pulse is found to induce a Mott transition in an organic molecular compound. The metallization is attributed to an impulsive dielectric breakdown.

    • H. Yamakawa
    • , T. Miyamoto
    •  & H. Okamoto

  • News & Views |

    A tuned oxide superlattice possesses two coexisting phases — one ferroelectric, the other with vortex order — which can be interconverted under electric field, changing material properties.

    • Matthew Dawber

  • Article |

    Viscoelastic phase separation of colloidal suspensions can be interrupted to form gels either by glass transition or crystallization. A kinetic pathway to spontaneously form network or porous structures made of metallic and semiconducting crystals is proposed.

    • Hideyo Tsurusawa
    • , John Russo
    •  & Hajime Tanaka

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