Physical sciences articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bacteria continuously inject energy into their surroundings and thus induce chaotic like flows, namely meso-scale turbulence. Here, the authors show that transition to meso-scale turbulence and inertial turbulence observed in pipes share the same scaling behavior that belongs to the directed percolation universality class.

    • Amin Doostmohammadi
    • , Tyler N. Shendruk
    •  & Julia M. Yeomans

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Precision measurements provide a sensitive test of fundamental constants and their uncertainties. Here the authors precisely measure the hyperfine structure splitting in bismuth ions, and report significant discrepancy with the theoretical prediction of quantum electrodynamics.

    • Johannes Ullmann
    • , Zoran Andelkovic
    •  & Wilfried Nörtershäuser

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electron energy-loss magnetic chiral dichroism enables the measurement of the local magnetic properties of a material using a transmission electron microscope, but is limited to signals in the electron-beam direction. Here, the authors demonstrate a method to extend this to in-plane magnetic signals too.

    • Dongsheng Song
    • , Amir H. Tavabi
    •  & Jing Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Blatter’s radicals are highly valuable stable organic free radicals, comprising a heterocyclic ring system functionalized with a heteroaryl or alkyl group at the C-3 position. Here, the authors report a synthetic strategy to obtain Blatter’s radical substituted with an amine and amide group.

    • Jacob A. Grant
    • , Zhou Lu
    •  & AnnMarie C. O’Donoghue

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sustainable strategies for nitrile synthesis are needed. Here, the authors report an environmentally benign, selective heterogeneous catalyst for the synthesis of nitriles by the oxidative cyanation of carbon and hydrogen (C-H) bonds, which comprises nanoscale manganese oxide catalysts fixed inside a zeolite crystal.

    • Liang Wang
    • , Guoxiong Wang
    •  & Feng-Shou Xiao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Shaping and guiding the flow of ballistic electrons is at the core of electron optics; however in graphene this is hindered by chiral tunneling. Here, the authors experimentally demonstrate an electron collimator based on hBN-encapsulated ballistic graphene, capable of emitting narrow electron beams.

    • Arthur W. Barnard
    • , Alex Hughes
    •  & David Goldhaber-Gordon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum optics in the mid-infrared is difficult due to the lack of suitable detectors. Here the authors show that by spectral translation it is possible to develop a room temperature mid-infrared detector suitable for coincidence measurements on non-degenerate twin photons.

    • M. Mancinelli
    • , A. Trenti
    •  & L. Pavesi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Superlubricity has been predicted and observed at an atomistic level, yet its dynamics is not well understood due to the lack ofin situ characterization of contact surfaces. Kiethe et al. use a trapped two-dimensional ion crystal as a model for the study of nanofriction in self-organized structures.

    • J. Kiethe
    • , R. Nigmatullin
    •  & T. E. Mehlstäubler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The electrodynamics of topological insulators has been predicted to show a new magnetoelectric term, but this hasn’t been observed. Here, Dziomet al. observe a universal Faraday rotation angle equal to the fine structure constant, evidencing the so-called topological magnetoelectric effect.

    • V. Dziom
    • , A. Shuvaev
    •  & L. W. Molenkamp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change may alter building energy demand. Here, the authors quantify changes in residential electricity and natural gas demand in Los Angeles County and find that rising temperatures may increase electricity demand by 41–87% between 2020 and 2060, but improved efficiency could lower this increase to 28%.

    • Janet L. Reyna
    •  & Mikhail V. Chester

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The breaking of parity-time symmetric gain and loss profiles can be used to achieve single-mode lasing in coupled microring resonators. Here, Liuet al. show that this effect can be electrically controlled with a tunable lasing wavelength and strong sidemode suppression.

    • Weilin Liu
    • , Ming Li
    •  & Jianping Yao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Water can function as a sustainable reactor for the synthesis of size-controlled, functional nanoparticles. Here, the authors introduce an underwater Leidenfrost synthesis that reproduces the dynamic chemistry of the deep ocean, in which anticancer therapeutic ZnO2nanoclusters form in an overheated zone and migrate to colder water to continue growth.

    • Mady Elbahri
    • , Ramzy Abdelaziz
    •  & Moheb Abdelaziz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conductive colloidal chains are promising for electronics but difficult to synthesize outside of a liquid environment. Here, the authors use field-directed assembly and capillary effects to pull conductive particle chains out of a suspension, which remain held together by flexible liquid bridges even after the external field is turned off.

    • Zbigniew Rozynek
    • , Ming Han
    •  & Erik Luijten

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Emergence and growth of crystalline domains in granular media remains under-explored. Here, the authors analyse tomographic snapshots from partially recrystallized packings of spheres using persistent homology and find agreement with proposed transitions based on continuous deformation of octahedral and tetrahedral voids.

    • M. Saadatfar
    • , H. Takeuchi
    •  & Y. Hiraoka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solutions of computations can be encoded in the ground state of many-body spin models. Here the authors show that solutions to generic reversible classical computations can be encoded in the ground state of a vertex model, which can be reached without finite temperature phase transitions.

    • C. Chamon
    • , E. R. Mucciolo
    •  & Z.-C. Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    CdSe/CdS tetrapods exhibit the unusual trait of two-colour multiexcitonic emission. Here Mishraet al. study this type of dual emission at the single-nanocrystal level. By tuning arm diameter and length they seek to understand shape-dependent evolution of the emission and of blinking behaviour.

    • Nimai Mishra
    • , Noah J. Orfield
    •  & Jennifer A. Hollingsworth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The high-temperature tetragonal phase of HfO2 is technologically useful but difficult to stabilize at room temperature. Here, the authors observe in real-time the transformation of a HfO2nanorod from its room temperature to tetragonal phase, at 1000° less than its bulk temperature, suggesting that size confinement may kinetically trap this phase.

    • Bethany M. Hudak
    • , Sean W. Depner
    •  & Beth S. Guiton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conventional plasmons in metals often suffer from high plasmonic loss in the optical range. Here, the authors report a distinct form of tunable correlated plasmons in Mott-like insulating Sr1−xNbO3+δfilms, with multiple plasmon frequencies and low loss in the visible-ultraviolet range.

    • Teguh Citra Asmara
    • , Dongyang Wan
    •  & Andrivo Rusydi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using chips that mimic the human brain to perform cognitive tasks, namely neuromorphic computing, calls for low power and high efficiency hardware. Here, Yaoet al. show on-chip analogue weight storage by integrating non-volatile resistive memory into a CMOS platform and test it in facial recognition.

    • Peng Yao
    • , Huaqiang Wu
    •  & He Qian

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metasurfaces are not adjustable after fabrication, and a critical challenge is to realise a technique of tuning their optical properties that is both fast and efficient. Here, Shcherbakov et al. realise an ultrafast tunable metasurface with picosecond-scale large absolute reflectance modulation at low pump fluences.

    • Maxim R. Shcherbakov
    • , Sheng Liu
    •  & Andrey A. Fedyanin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanism underpinning the photovoltaic effect in hybrid perovskite solar cells has remained unclear. Here, Green and co-workers suggest that iodide ions in methylammonium lead iodide perovskite migrate via interstitial sites and undergo a redox reaction to form molecular iodine and free electrons.

    • J. L. Minns
    • , P. Zajdel
    •  & M. A. Green

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Determining the spatial dynamics of excited carriers will provide a more complete understanding of ultrafast carrier dynamics in materials. Using scanning ultrafast electron microscopy, Najafiet al. are able to observe the spatiotemporal dynamics of excited electron and hole carriers in silicon.

    • Ebrahim Najafi
    • , Vsevolod Ivanov
    •  & Marco Bernardi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Organic semiconductors with long spin lifetime hold promise for future spintronics devices that can process and store information. Here, Schottet al. perform a systematic study of the strength of spin-orbit coupling and its effect on spin lifetime over 32 promising molecules with high charge mobility.

    • Sam Schott
    • , Erik R. McNellis
    •  & Henning Sirringhaus

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exploring the interplay of quantum effects enriches the scientific and technological understanding in nanoscale devices. The authors find that two apparently different quantum effects, quantum interference and the Kondo effect, can be unified to describe electron transport in single-molecule junctions.

    • Andrew K. Mitchell
    • , Kim G. L. Pedersen
    •  & Jens Paaske

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Commercial electrolytes for lithium ion batteries cannot be used for current metal-gas batteries due to the instability despite various merits. Here, the authors successfully exploit a widely used carbonate-based electrolyte to boost the electrochemical performance of lithium-sulfur dioxide batteries for the first time.

    • Hyeokjun Park
    • , Hee-Dae Lim
    •  & Kisuk Kang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The unification of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics is a long-standing challenge in physics. Here the authors investigate the effects of a wide range of accelerations on an entangled photon pair, providing an upper bound for the effects of non-inertial frames on quantum systems.

    • Matthias Fink
    • , Ana Rodriguez-Aramendia
    •  & Rupert Ursin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Future technologies based on ferroelectric materials will require new routes to control the nature of polar order. Through a combined experimental and theoretical study of compositionally and strain-graded Ba1-xSrxTiO3 heterostructures, Damodaranet al. demonstrate the ability to engineer large polarization gradients and temperature-stable susceptibilities.

    • Anoop R. Damodaran
    • , Shishir Pandya
    •  & Lane W. Martin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tuning of plasmonic nanostructures has yet to cover a full colour basis set with a single nanostructure. Franklinet al. demonstrate a liquid crystal-plasmonic system that covers the full red-green-blue colour basis set as a function of voltage and which can be actively addressed with thin-film-transistor technology.

    • Daniel Franklin
    • , Russell Frank
    •  & Debashis Chanda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ability to electrically control magnetism could enable a new generation of low-power electronic devices. Here the authors show that charging and discharging of supercapacitors are powerful tools to achieve reversible above-room-temperature magnetoelectric effects.

    • Alan Molinari
    • , Philipp M. Leufke
    •  & Horst Hahn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Drug delivery in brain tumours is still a significant clinical concern. In this study, the authors develop a biomimetic lipoprotein nanoparticle for the efficient delivery of ATF5 siRNA inRas-activated brain cancer cells, where the nanoparticle is internalized by macropinocytosis in a Ras-dependent manner.

    • Jia-Lin Huang
    • , Gan Jiang
    •  & Xiao-Ling Gao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dynamically controlling the conformations of 1D elongated supramolecular polymers can induce functions comparable to protein folding/unfolding. Here the authors show light-induced conformational changes of azobenzene-based supramolecular polymers from helically coiled to extended/randomly coiled conformations.

    • Bimalendu Adhikari
    • , Yuki Yamada
    •  & Shiki Yagai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nano-mechanical resonators improve with high-Q factor and light mass, but this leads to the onset of nonlinear behaviour. Here the authors demonstrate precise control of the non-linear and bistable dynamics of a levitated nanoparticle in vacuum, using it as model system to study stochastic bistable phenomena.

    • F. Ricci
    • , R. A. Rica
    •  & R. Quidant

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Saturable absorption, a technologically relevant property of graphene, is usually explained with Pauli blocking of optically driven carriers in the strong-excitation regime. Here, Winzeret al. reveal a new saturation regime at low excitations, resulting in a double-bended saturation behaviour.

    • Torben Winzer
    • , Martin Mittendorff
    •  & Andreas Knorr

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The set of causal relations that can connect two systems is much richer in the quantum world. Here the authors show that it is possible to have a coherent mixture of a cause-effect and a common-cause mechanism between two systems, realizing this in a quantum optics experiment.

    • Jean-Philippe W. MacLean
    • , Katja Ried
    •  & Kevin J. Resch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrocatalysts based on earth-abundant elements have emerged as promising candidates to replace noble metal materials. Here, the authors develop porous hybrid nanostructures combining amorphous Ni-Co complexes with 1T phase MoS2for enhanced electrocatalytic activity for overall water splitting.

    • Haoyi Li
    • , Shuangming Chen
    •  & Xun Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The rotational orientation of a molecule plays a fundamental role in molecule-surface collisions, yet is difficult to study. Here, the authors present a general approach for controlling and resolving molecular rotational orientation and apply it to study H2scattering from flat and stepped copper surfaces.

    • Oded Godsi
    • , Gefen Corem
    •  & Gil Alexandrowicz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The complex internal structure of magnetic impurities, which locally distort superconductivity, is usually neglected. Here, Choiet al. report that the number and shape of Shiba states are correlated to the spin-polarized atomic orbitals of the impurity, valuable to design atomic-scale superconducting devices.

    • Deung-Jang Choi
    • , Carmen Rubio-Verdú
    •  & Jose Ignacio Pascual

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