Physical sciences articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    A highly efficient stereoselective C−H alkylation of indoles with aryl alkenes is achieved by sustainable iron catalysis, leading to atropoenriched and enantioenriched substituted indoles with high structural diversity. Detailed mechanistic studies by experiment, Mössbauer spectroscopy and computation reveal the origin of the catalytic efficacy and stereoselectivity.

    • Zi-Jing Zhang
    • , Nicolas Jacob
    •  & Lutz Ackermann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The thermal Hall effect is a novel probe of neutral excitations in insulators; however, the mechanism behind one type of neutral excitations – phonons – is still unclear. Here the authors observe a planar thermal Hall effect in the Kitaev candidate material Na2Co2TeO6 and proposed that it is generated by phonons.

    • Lu Chen
    • , Étienne Lefrançois
    •  & Louis Taillefer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Normal mode analysis is a crucial step in structural biology, but is based on an expensive diagonalisation of the system’s Hessian. Here the authors present INCHING, a GPU-based approach to accelerate this task up to >250 times over current methods for macromolecular assemblies.

    • Jordy Homing Lam
    • , Aiichiro Nakano
    •  & Vsevolod Katritch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thin crystals grown on rigid spherical templates of increasing curvature exhibit increased protrusions. Here, the authors demonstrate the opposite curvature effect on the morphology of molecularly thin crystals grown within elastic fluid membranes, like those of biological cells.

    • Hao Wan
    • , Geunwoong Jeon
    •  & Maria M. Santore

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, authors demonstrate the electrohydrodynamic printing of alkylated 3,4-dihydroxy-L-phenylalanine functionalized MXene (AD-MXene) ink. The AD-MXene outperforms vacuum-deposited Au and Al electrodes, providing thin film transistors with good environmental stability due to its hydrophobicity.

    • Tae Yun Ko
    • , Heqing Ye
    •  & Insik In

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors experimentally study a chain of superconducting islands (SI) and quantum dots (QD), where a Bogoliubov quasiparticle occupies each SI. They demonstrate correlations between the quasiparticles in each SI mediated by a single spin on the QD, known as an “over-screened" doublet state of the QD.

    • Juan Carlos Estrada Saldaña
    • , Alexandros Vekris
    •  & Jesper Nygård

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Poly-β-(1–6)-N-acetylglucosamine (PNAG) is an important vaccine target, but the impact of the number and position of free amine vs N-acetylation on its antigenicity is not well understood. Here, the authors report a divergent strategy to synthesize a comprehensive library of PNAG pentasaccharides, enabling the identification of enhanced epitopes for vaccines against Staphylococcus aureus including drug resistant strains.

    • Zibin Tan
    • , Weizhun Yang
    •  & Xuefei Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Large-scale eDMFT computation reveals that FeO undergoes a gradual orbitally selective insulator-metal transition across the extreme conditions of Earth’s interior, with implications for compositions and conductivity of the core-mantle boundary region.

    • Wai-Ga D. Ho
    • , Peng Zhang
    •  & Vasilije V. Dobrosavljevic

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The communication of colour information stands as one of the most immediate and widespread methods of interaction among biological entities. Xu et al. report an electrochromic neuromorphic transistor employing color updates to represent synaptic weight for real-time visualised in-sensor computing.

    • Yao Ni
    • , Jiaqi Liu
    •  & Wentao Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Schools, flocks and related forms of collective behavior and collective locomotion involve complicated fluid dynamical interactions. Here, using a “mock flock" of robotic flappers, authors report that the interaction between leaders and followers is similar to one-way springs, leading to lattice-like self-organization but also a new type of traveling-wave disturbance.

    • Joel W. Newbolt
    • , Nickolas Lewis
    •  & Leif Ristroph

  • Article
    | Open Access

    F-actin architecture modulates transmission and generation of stresses in cells, yet its impact on myosin ATP hydrolysis remains unknown. The authors perform experiments measuring myosin ATP hydrolysis rates, showing that F-actin architecture can control myosin energy consumption.

    • Ryota Sakamoto
    •  & Michael P. Murrell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pulse tube refrigerators are a critical enabling technology for many disciplines that require low temperatures, including quantum computing. Here, the authors show that dynamically optimizing the acoustic parameters of the refrigerator can improve conventional cooldown speeds up to 3.5 times.

    • Ryan Snodgrass
    • , Vincent Kotsubo
    •  & Joel Ullom

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Notwithstanding their success as strongly σ-donating and π-accepting ligands, to date no chelating bis[cyclic (alkyl)(amino)carbenes] have been reported. Here the authors describe a chelating, C2-symmetric bis[cyclic (alkyl)(amino)carbene] ligand, as well as its pseudotetrahedral complexes with iron, cobalt, nickel, and zinc dihalides.

    • Braulio M. Puerta Lombardi
    • , Morgan R. Faas
    •  & Roland Roesler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Crystalline materials’ properties are highly dependent on their size. Here authors report a general synthesis of ultrasmall (4–6 nm) and highly defective Zr/Hf-Metal Organic Frameworks nanoparticles that present enhanced peptide hydrolysis performance.

    • Shan Dai
    • , Charlotte Simms
    •  & Christian Serre

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While monolayer of 1T-TaS2 is considered to be a Mott insulator, the nature of the bulk insulating state is debated. Here the authors introduce a ladder-type structures with fractional misalignment of adjacent layers, showing that it becomes a Mott insulator due to decoupling between the layers.

    • Yihao Wang
    • , Zhihao Li
    •  & Liang Cao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors characterize the phonon modes at the FeSe/SrTiO3 interface with atomically resolved electron energy loss spectroscopy and correlate them with accurate atomic structure in an electron microscope. They find several phonon modes highly localized at the interface, one of which engages in strong interactions with the electrons in FeSe.

    • Ruochen Shi
    • , Qize Li
    •  & Peng Gao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Measuring quantum entanglement remains a demanding task. The authors introduce two functions to quantify entanglement induced by fermionic or bosonic statistics, in transport experiments. Both functions, in theory and experiment, are remarkably resilient against the nonuniversal effects of interactions.

    • Gu Zhang
    • , Changki Hong
    •  & Yuval Gefen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Integrating self-healing capabilities into skin-like stretchable transistors presents a persistent challenge. Here, by using a supramolecular polymer matrix, the authors develop autonomous self-healing transistors and skin-like logic circuits.

    • Ngoc Thanh Phuong Vo
    • , Tae Uk Nam
    •  & Jin Young Oh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    N-Glycosylated heterocycles play important roles in biological systems and drug development, but the synthesis heavily relies on ionic N-glycosylation. Herein, the authors report a dehydroxylative radical method for synthesizing N-glycosides by leveraging copper metallaphotoredox catalysis.

    • Da-Peng Liu
    • , Xiao-Sen Zhang
    •  & Xiang-Guo Hu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polarizability, a property that is closely related to softness in the classic theory of Hard and Soft Acids and Bases (HSAB), has been largely overlooked in connecting with enantio-selection in the past. Here, the authors show local polarizability-based electronic effects can rationalize a wide range of stereochemical outcomes in widely-known asymmetric catalytic reactions.

    • Fumin Chen
    • , Yu Chen
    •  & Xiangyou Xing

  • Article
    | Open Access

    All holographic displays and imaging techniques are fundamentally limited by the étendue supported by existing spatial light modulators. Here, the authors report on using artificial intelligence (AI) to learn an étendue expanding element that effectively increases étendue by two orders of magnitude.

    • Ethan Tseng
    • , Grace Kuo
    •  & Felix Heide

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sluggish kinetics of the CO2 reactions lead to the accumulation of Li2CO3 residuals, which hinders the cycling stability of Li-CO2 batteries. Here, the authors reveal the catalytic role of in-situ formed C-N species in enhancing the reversibility of Li2CO3 and cycle life of Li-CO2 batteries.

    • Fangli Zhang
    • , Wenchao Zhang
    •  & Zaiping Guo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Phosphoric acid (PA) doped proton exchange membranes (PEMs) often degrade above 200 °C due to membrane creeping, PA dehydration, and condensation. Here, the authors introduce gel-state polybenzimidazole PEMs with double cross-linked 3D layered structures, enabling efficient and stable fuel cell operation above 200 °C.

    • Liang Zhang
    • , Mengjiao Liu
    •  & Lixin Xue

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Converting CO2 to valuable chemicals is of high interest. Here the authors address the challenge of low CO2 solubility in water by incorporating a metal-organic framework layer to enhance CO2 pre-concentration and activation before its electroreduction by the underlying solid electrocatalyst.

    • Subhabrata Mukhopadhyay
    • , Muhammad Saad Naeem
    •  & Idan Hod

  • Article
    | Open Access

    MnBi2Te4 is an antiferromagnetic topological insulator. This combination of magnetic ordering and topological properties has resulted in intense interest, however, like many van der Waals materials, experimental results are hampered by fabrication difficulties. Here, Li, Wang, Lian et al. show that the fabrication process itself can result in mismatched thickness dependence of magneto-transport measurements. ‘

    • Yaoxin Li
    • , Yongchao Wang
    •  & Chang Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The intelligent responses of Venus flytrap to various stimuli provide valuable insights into electronic design. Here, the authors report a liquid metal-based logic module with memory and counting properties to intelligently respond like the flytrap.

    • Yuanyuan Yang
    •  & Yajing Shen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The synthesis of sequence-regulated oligosulfates has not yet been established due to the difficulties in precise reactivity control. Here, the authors report a multi-directional divergent iterative method to furnish oligosulfates based on a chain homologation approach, in which the fluorosulfate unit is regenerated.

    • Min Pyeong Kim
    • , Swatilekha Kayal
    •  & Sung You Hong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical interference filters are multilayer structures for controlling the propagation of electromagnetic waves. Jin et al. have developed a method of via inkjet printing to fabricate optical interference filters with commercially relevant quality with remarkable A4 paper size (29.7 × 21.0 cm²) in ambient conditions.

    • Qihao Jin
    • , Qiaoshuang Zhang
    •  & Uli Lemmer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In addition to its low-field superconducting state, UTe2 features a re-entrant superconducting state when high magnetic fields are applied at a particular range of angles. Here, the authors demonstrate that the high-field re-entrant superconducting state survives even when the low-field superconducting state is destroyed by disorder.

    • Corey E. Frank
    • , Sylvia K. Lewin
    •  & Nicholas P. Butch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors study monolayer FeSe via scanning tunneling microscopy and simultaneous micron-scale-probe-based transport. They observe distinct superconducting phases in domains and on boundaries between domains, with different superconducting gaps and pairing temperatures.

    • Dapeng Zhao
    • , Wenqiang Cui
    •  & Qi-Kun Xue

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An efficient way of realising a large number of telecom single-photon emitters for quantum communication is still missing. Here, the authors use a wide-field imaging technique for fast localization of single InAs/InP quantum dots, which are then integrated into circular Bragg grating cavities featuring high single-photon purity and indistinguishability.

    • Paweł Holewa
    • , Daniel A. Vajner
    •  & Elizaveta Semenova

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Developing facile and direct synthesis routes for enantioselective construction of cyclic π-conjugated molecules is crucial but the chirality orginiating from the distorted structure around heptagon-containing polyarenes is largely overlooked. Herein the authors present a highly enantioselective synthesis for fabrication of all carbon heptagon-containing polyarenes via palladium-catalyzed carbene-based cross–coupling of benzyl bromides and N-arylsulfonylhydrazones.

    • Huan Zhang
    • , Chuan-Jun Lu
    •  & Ren-Rong Liu

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    Hypersonic vehicles experience extreme temperatures, high heat fluxes, and aggressive oxidizing environments. Here, the authors highlight key materials design principles for critical vehicle areas and strategies for advancing laboratory-scale materials to flight-ready components.

    • Adam B. Peters
    • , Dajie Zhang
    •  & Suhas Eswarappa Prameela

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bound states in continuum have attracted attention in various platforms, and recently condensation of bound states in continuum polariton modes was demonstrated at low temperatures. Here the authors report the observation of such a state in a periodic air-hole perovskite-based photonic crystal at room temperature.

    • Xianxin Wu
    • , Shuai Zhang
    •  & Xinfeng Liu

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