Physical sciences articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Manual sample deposition on a substrate can introduce artifacts in quantitative AFM measurements. Here the authors present a microfluidic spray device for reliable deposition of subpicoliter droplets which dry out in milliseconds after landing on the surface, thereby avoiding protein self-assembly.

    • Francesco Simone Ruggeri
    • , Jerome Charmet
    •  & Tuomas P. J. Knowles
  • Article
    | Open Access

    With the discovery of large rocky exoplanets called Super-Earths, questions have arisen regarding the properties of their interiors and their ability to produce a magnetic field. Here, the authors show that under high pressure, molten silicates are semi-metallic and that magma oceans would host a dynamo process.

    • François Soubiran
    •  & Burkhard Militzer
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Perovskite solar cells often suffer from poor uniformity and reproducibility especially in case of large area devices. Here Liu et al. developed a gas−solid reaction method that enables facile fabrication of over 1 µm thick perovskite films for solar modules with high efficiency, stability and reproducibility.

    • Zonghao Liu
    • , Longbin Qiu
    •  & Yabing Qi
  • Article
    | Open Access

    The electrodynamics of superconducting devices make them suitable for applications as detectors, amplifiers, and qubits. Here the authors show that resonators made from granular aluminum, which naturally realizes a network of Josephson junctions, have practically useful impedances and nonlinearities.

    • N. Maleeva
    • , L. Grünhaupt
    •  & I. M. Pop
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sodium–sulfur batteries operating at a high temperature between 300 and 350°C have been used commercially, but the safety issue hinders their wider adoption. Here the authors report a “cocktail optimized” electrolyte system that enables higher electrochemical performance and room-temperature operation.

    • Xiaofu Xu
    • , Dong Zhou
    •  & Guoxiu Wang
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Configuring surfaces on-demand for desired functionalities is an ongoing challenge. Here, diverse and tailorable modifications of quartz and porous silica surfaces that are rapidly and reversibly switchable by the use of visible light are achieved via ruthenium-thioether coordination.

    • Chaoming Xie
    • , Wen Sun
    •  & Si Wu
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Owing to their lack of a conventional cavity, random lasers typically do not emit a defined beam in a specific direction. Here, the authors combine spatial solitons and collinear pumping to achieve light-confined random lasing with a smooth output profile and a controllable direction of emission.

    • Sreekanth Perumbilavil
    • , Armando Piccardi
    •  & Gaetano Assanto
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Single-site catalysts supported by ultrathin two-dimensional (2D) porous matrix are desirable for catalytic reactions, yet their synthesis remains a great challenge. Herein the authors report a cocoon silk chemistry strategy to synthesize isolated metal single-site catalysts embedded in ultrathin 2D porous N-doped carbon nanosheets.

    • Youqi Zhu
    • , Wenming Sun
    •  & Yadong Li
  • Article
    | Open Access

    To fully exploit the potential of multiferroic materials the control of their intrinsic degrees of freedom is a prerequisite. Here, the control of spin orientation in strained BiFeO3 films is demonstrated elucidating the microscopic mechanism of the complex interplay of polar and magnetic order.

    • Zuhuang Chen
    • , Zhanghui Chen
    •  & Lane W. Martin
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Synthetic active particles with inter-particle propulsion have been served as a model system to study the collective animal behaviors. Here, Khadka et al. add complexity to the model by spatially controlling particle motions through a laser feedback loop in response to the collective dynamics of particles.

    • Utsab Khadka
    • , Viktor Holubec
    •  & Frank Cichos
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nematic liquid crystals have a rich energy landscape which can define elastic fields to guide colloidal assembly. Here the authors show controllable trapping of colloidal particles by placing them in a system with wavy walls which are exploited to obtain stable, metastable and unstable equilibria.

    • Yimin Luo
    • , Daniel A. Beller
    •  & Kathleen J. Stebe
  • Article
    | Open Access

    The lack of understanding of mixed transport in ion-permeable conjugated polymer films hinders the advance of organic electrochemical transistors for bioelectronics. Here, the authors elucidate the structure-property-performance relationships for conventional and crystallized PEDOT:PSS films.

    • Seong-Min Kim
    • , Chang-Hyun Kim
    •  & Myung-Han Yoon
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Extraterrestrial sources may have provided prebiotic phosphorus to the early Earth. Here, the authors investigate the potential of phosphine-doped astrochemical analog ices to form phosphorus oxoacids as precursors to more complex prebiotic compounds.

    • Andrew M. Turner
    • , Alexandre Bergantini
    •  & Ralf I. Kaiser
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lipid-based membranes coupled to biochemical reaction networks can be difficult to implement in vitro. Here the authors use elastin-like peptides to create self-assembled vesicle structures containing transcription-translation systems for autonomous growth.

    • Kilian Vogele
    • , Thomas Frank
    •  & Tobias Pirzer
  • Article
    | Open Access

    The development of potassium-ion batteries requires cathode materials that can maintain the structural stability during cycling. Here the authors have developed honeycomb-layered tellurates K2M2TeO6 that afford high ionic conductivity and reversible intercalation of large K ions at high voltages.

    • Titus Masese
    • , Kazuki Yoshii
    •  & Masahiro Shikano
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the location and nature of the catalytic active site is critical for controlling a catalyst’s activity and selectivity. Here, the authors separate the metal from the support by a controlled distance while maintaining the ability to promote defects via the use of carbon nanotube hydrogen highways.

    • Nicholas M. Briggs
    • , Lawrence Barrett
    •  & Steven P. Crossley
  • Article
    | Open Access

    While multi-carbon (C2+) products present high-value species attainable from emitted carbon dioxide, it is challenging to prepare stable, C2+ selective catalysts. Here, authors support copper on copper nitride to improve copper’s electrocatalytic stability and selectivity toward C2+ synthesis.

    • Zhi-Qin Liang
    • , Tao-Tao Zhuang
    •  & Edward H. Sargent
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Vitamin E metabolites are proposed to have signalling capacity, but how they may regulate immune responses is still unclear. Here the authors show that a vitamin E metabolite, α-T-13′-COOH, can inhibit 5-lipoxygenase and thereby suppress the synthesis of lipid mediators of immune activation and inflammatory responses.

    • Helmut Pein
    • , Alexia Ville
    •  & Andreas Koeberle
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Alumina is thought to be the main condensate to form in the gas outflow from oxygen-rich evolved stars. Here, the authors perform a condensation experiment with alumina in a low-gravity environment, and find spectroscopic evidence for a sharp feature at a wavelength of 13.55 μm.

    • Shinnosuke Ishizuka
    • , Yuki Kimura
    •  & Yuko Inatomi
  • Article
    | Open Access

    At low densities, it is understood that the physics of two-dimensional electron gases becomes dominated by interactions but the nature of the state that forms remains controversial. Here the authors present transport measurements that indicate the existence of a Wigner crystal in silicon MOSFETs.

    • Pedro Brussarski
    • , S. Li
    •  & M. P. Sarachik
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Crystal stability prediction is of paramount importance for novel material discovery, with theoretical approaches alternative to expensive standard schemes highly desired. Here the authors develop a deep learning approach which, just using two descriptors, provides crystalline formation energies with very high accuracy.

    • Weike Ye
    • , Chi Chen
    •  & Shyue Ping Ong
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chirality transfer by chemical self-assembly has been studied intensively for years but chirality transfers along the same path remains elusive. Here the authors use a multiscale chemo-mechanical model to elucidate the mechanism underlying the chirality transfer via self-assembly in hierarchical camphorsulfonic acid doped polyaniline.

    • Yang Yang
    • , Jie Liang
    •  & Zhixiang Wei
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) find increasing application as sensor material, but fast switching solvatochromism was not realized. Here the authors demonstrate that combination of electron-rich and -deficient building blocks leads to COFs which fast and reversibly change of their electronic structure depending on the surrounding atmosphere.

    • Laura Ascherl
    • , Emrys W. Evans
    •  & Florian Auras
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Identifying active sites and designing rationally heterogeneous catalysts are not inherently straightforward due to their complexity. Here, the authors reveal the nature of active sites for efficient C–H bond activation in C1-C4 alkanes over bare ZrO2 and provide fundamentals for controlling their concentration.

    • Yaoyuan Zhang
    • , Yun Zhao
    •  & Evgenii V. Kondratenko
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Traditional optical organic vapor sensors with solvatochromic shift mechanisms have lower sensitivity due to weak intermolecular interactions. Here, the authors report a general strategy to prepare a higher sensitivity optical organic vapor sensor through polymeric swelling-induced variation of fluorescent intensity.

    • Xiangyu Jiang
    • , Hanfei Gao
    •  & Lei Jiang
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum mechanics is expected to provide a consistent description of reality, even when recursively describing systems contained in each other. Here, the authors develop a variant of Wigner’s friend Gedankenexperiment where each of the current interpretations of QM fails in giving a consistent description.

    • Daniela Frauchiger
    •  & Renato Renner
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Controlling ferroelectric polarization is conventionally achieved by applying electric fields, mechanical force or similar. Here reversible switching of the bulk polarization of a BiFeO3 thin film is demonstrated by pattering aqueous solution on to the surface enabling large-scale switching.

    • Yu Tian
    • , Lanying Wei
    •  & Jinxing Zhang
  • Article
    | Open Access

    The stability of perovskite solar cell remains the biggest challenge that hinders its commercialization. Here Li et al. incorporate crosslinkable molecules to form a crosslinked perovskite film and increase the device operational stability by 590 times to 400 h under standard Xenon lamp without filters.

    • Xiaodong Li
    • , Wenxiao Zhang
    •  & Junfeng Fang
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Identifying atomic defects during deformation is crucial to understand material response but remains challenging in three dimensions. Here, the authors couple X-ray Bragg coherent diffraction imaging and atomistic simulations to correlate a strain field to a screw dislocation in a single copper grain.

    • Mathew J. Cherukara
    • , Reeju Pokharel
    •  & Richard L. Sandberg
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum ferromagnetic spin liquids in two dimensions, namely quantum kagome ices, yield exotic magnetic properties but their identification remains challenging. Here the authors investigate a dynamic kagome ice state in the pyrochlore oxide Nd2Zr2O7 by magnetization and neutron scattering measurements.

    • E. Lhotel
    • , S. Petit
    •  & G. Balakrishnan
  • Article
    | Open Access

    The weak and directional CH-π hydrogen bond has rarely been exploited in the design of supramolecular complexes and molecular machinery. Here, the authors construct a bowl-in-tube complex stabilized solely by concyclic CH-π hydrogen bonds, and show that the guest exhibits single-axis rotational motion despite tight association with the host.

    • Taisuke Matsuno
    • , Masahiro Fujita
    •  & Hiroyuki Isobe
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hydrogen spillover is well-documented in hydrogenation catalysis, but its existence through metalorganic frameworks (MOFs) remains controversial. Here, the authors provide evidence of the occurrence of hydrogen spillover in microporous MOFs at elevated temperatures, and measure quantitatively the penetration depths of atomic hydrogen.

    • Guowu Zhan
    •  & Hua Chun Zeng
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Zeolitic transition metal oxides provide both porosity and redox activity, thereby further expanding the diversity of porous materials, but their design and development remain rare. Here, the authors report a new class of zeolitic vanadotungstates with tunable frameworks exhibiting a large porosity and redox activity.

    • Zhenxin Zhang
    • , Qianqian Zhu
    •  & Wataru Ueda
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spin torques with different origins enable the magnetic domain wall motion, but the contributions are hard to be distinguished. Here, the authors show the method to measure both spin-magnetization transfer torque and spin–orbit torque by using mountain-shaped domains with straight domain walls.

    • Kyoung-Woong Moon
    • , Changsoo Kim
    •  & Chanyong Hwang
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the energy cost of entanglement extraction has fundamental implications, in particular for quantum field theory and condensed matter. Here, the authors analyse how the optimal energy cost scales with the number of extracted EPR pairs, when local operations and classical communication are allowed.

    • Cédric Bény
    • , Christopher T. Chubb
    •  & Tobias J. Osborne
  • Article
    | Open Access

    No substances with greater degrees of degeneracy than spherical atoms are known, due to geometrical limitations. In this work the authors combine density functional theory and tight-binding models to predict metal clusters with higher-fold degeneracies than spherical atoms, which are ascribed to dynamical symmetry.

    • Naoki Haruta
    • , Takamasa Tsukamoto
    •  & Kimihisa Yamamoto
  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    A variety of directional electronic transport phenomena can occur in materials with broken inversion-symmetry. Here, Tokura and Nagaosa review the underlying mechanisms and emergent phenomena of nonreciprocal responses in noncentrosymmetric quantum materials.

    • Yoshinori Tokura
    •  & Naoto Nagaosa
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Materials which change shape in response to a trigger are of interest for soft robotics and targeted therapeutic delivery. Here, the authors report on the development of DNA-crosslinked hydrogels which can expand upon the detection of different biomolecular inputs mediated by DNA strand-displacement.

    • Joshua Fern
    •  & Rebecca Schulman
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metal-mediated activation of CO for C-C coupling reactions is a valuable approach to carbon monoxide valorization. Here, the authors use low-coordinate iron(II) complexes for the selective scission and homologation of CO affording unusual squaraines and iron carboxylates under mild conditions.

    • Helen R. Sharpe
    • , Ana M. Geer
    •  & Deborah L. Kays
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chemically functionalized graphene oxide-based pn junction diodes have potential for future electronic device applications. Here, the authors report an all carbon pn diode with graphene oxide and carbon nanotubes electrodes showing excellent current rectification and efficient logic gates.

    • Xiaojing Feng
    • , Xing Zhao
    •  & Yong Yan
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neutrophilic granulocytes release their own DNA (NETosis) as neutrophil extracellular traps to capture pathogens. Here, the authors use time-resolved fluorescence and atomic force microscopy and reveal that NETosis is highly organized into three distinct phases with a clear point of no return defined by chromatin status.

    • Elsa Neubert
    • , Daniel Meyer
    •  & Sebastian Kruss
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Owing to strong Coulomb interactions, atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides host strongly bound excitonic complexes. Here, the authors report charge-neutral biexciton and negatively charged trion-exciton complexes in hBN encapsulated monolayer WSe2 by employing low-temperature photoluminescence spectroscopy.

    • Zhipeng Li
    • , Tianmeng Wang
    •  & Su-Fei Shi
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biexciton complexes in atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides have unusually large binding energies. Here, the authors explore biexciton formation dynamics in monolayer MoSe2 in the presence of magnetic fields up to 25 T.

    • Christopher. E. Stevens
    • , Jagannath Paul
    •  & Denis Karaiskaj