Structural materials articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Elucidating the formation of quasicrystals, which have long-range orientational order but no translation periodicity, remains a challenge. Here, the authors track and geometrically describe how a decagonal nickel–zirconium seed grows into a tenfold twinned dendritic structure.

    • Wolfgang Hornfeck
    • , Raphael Kobold
    •  & Dieter Herlach

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High entropy alloys usually emphasize equiatomic compositions, which restrict the compositions available to induce strengthening via precipitation. Here the authors use spinodal decomposition in a five-element alloy to obtain high content nanophases and the highest tensile strength reported to date.

    • Yao-Jian Liang
    • , Linjing Wang
    •  & Hongnian Cai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnesium alloys usually have poor corrosion resistance, which inhibits their use in the automotive and biomedical industries. Here, the authors use an environmental TEM to carbonate the natural corrosion products at the surface of magnesium alloys and form a compact and protective surface layer.

    • Yuecun Wang
    • , Boyu Liu
    •  & Zhiwei Shan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The specifics of nanoscale precipitation in steels remain complex. Here the authors combine high-resolution microscopy and atomistic simulations to identify a cooperative growth mechanism leading to the preferential growth of cementite nanoprecipitates along a specific crystallographic direction.

    • Hongcai Wang
    • , Xie Zhang
    •  & Gunther Eggeler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Superplasticity enables processing on hard-to-work solids but superelastic deformation, especially in a single-crystal-to-single-crystal manner, was not demonstrated for organic crystals so far. Here the authors demonstrate a single-crystal-to-single-crystal superplasticity in a crystal of N,N-dimethyl-4-nitroaniline.

    • Satoshi Takamizawa
    • , Yuichi Takasaki
    •  & Noriaki Ozaki

  • 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

    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

    Water uptake of natural polymers is accompanied by swelling and changes in the internal structure of the polymeric system but the exact mechanism of water-uptake and swelling remained unknown. Here the authors use atom-scale simulations to identify a molecular mechanism which is responsible for hysteresis in sorption-induced swelling in natural polymers.

    • Mingyang Chen
    • , Benoit Coasne
    •  & Jan Carmeliet

  • Article
    | Open Access

    3D printing of titanium alloys today is based on known alloy compositions that result in anisotropic structural properties. Here, the authors add lanthanum to commercially pure titanium and exploit a solidification path that reduces texture and anisotropy.

    • Pere Barriobero-Vila
    • , Joachim Gussone
    •  & Guillermo Requena

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High entropy oxides provide a new strategy toward materials design by stabilizing single-phase crystal structures composed of multiple cations. Here, the authors apply this concept to the development of conversion-type electrode materials for lithium-ion storage and show the underlying mechanism.

    • Abhishek Sarkar
    • , Leonardo Velasco
    •  & Ben Breitung

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exactly how hydrogen renders metals brittle is still unclear, and it remains a challenge to predict component failure due to hydrogen embrittlement. Here, the authors identify a class of grain boundaries in a nickel superalloy that deflects propagating cracks and improves alloy resistance to hydrogen.

    • John P. Hanson
    • , Akbar Bagri
    •  & Michael J. Demkowicz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the fracture toughness of metallic glasses remains challenging. Here, the authors show that a fictive temperature controls an abrupt mechanical toughening transition in metallic glasses, and can explain the scatter in previously reported fracture toughness data.

    • Jittisa Ketkaew
    • , Wen Chen
    •  & Jan Schroers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biomimetic assembly of nanosheets into nacre-like structures and films is of interest for a range of applications; the abundance of mica makes it a good candidate. Here, the authors report on the large-scale exfoliation of ground mica into nanosheets and the assembly into polymeric mica films.

    • Xiao-Feng Pan
    • , Huai-Ling Gao
    •  & Shu-Hong Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polymers cross-linked with dynamic bonds can switch the phase from solid to fluid upon stimulus but return quickly to the solid state once the stimulus is removed. Here the authors report a light triggered permanent solid to fluid transition at room temperature with inherent spatiotemporal control in either direction

    • Brady T. Worrell
    • , Matthew K. McBride
    •  & Christopher N. Bowman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Classifying crystal structures using their space group is important to understand material properties, but the process currently requires user input. Here, the authors use machine learning to automatically classify more than 100,000 simulated perfect and defective crystal structures.

    • Angelo Ziletti
    • , Devinder Kumar
    •  & Luca M. Ghiringhelli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stretchable conductors are important for further developments in the electronics industry, but improving the deformability when maintaining the high-level conductivity is still challenging. Here the authors demonstrate a ternary self-healing silver nanowire/polymer network as high-performance stretchable conductor.

    • Pin Song
    • , Haili Qin
    •  & Shu-Hong Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metals deformed at very high rates experience a rapid increase in flow stress due to dislocation drag. Here, the authors stabilise a nanocrystalline microstructure to suppress dislocation velocity and limit drag effects, conserving low strain-rate deformation mechanisms up to higher strain rates and temperatures.

    • S. A. Turnage
    • , M. Rajagopalan
    •  & K. N. Solanki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Collecting experimental evidence of chloride ion attack on protective passive metallic films due to corrosion remains challenging. Here, the authors show that the boundaries between nanocrystals and amorphous regions in the passive film ease chloride transport even as they do not coincide with areas of high chloride concentration.

    • B. Zhang
    • , J. Wang
    •  & X. L. Ma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite being the lightest structural alloys, obtaining magnesium alloys with both high strength and high formability remains a challenge. Here, the authors use precipitation and elemental segregation to design a magnesium alloy with high strength and high formability.

    • T. T. T. Trang
    • , J. H. Zhang
    •  & N. J. Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Twinning has been experimentally seen in high-entropy alloys, but understanding how it operates remains a challenge. Here, the authors show that twinning can be a primary deformation mechanism in three well-known medium- and high-entropy alloys that have unstable face-centered cubic lattices.

    • Shuo Huang
    • , He Huang
    •  & Levente Vitos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The recently introduced glass and liquid states of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) provide opportunities to design and explore new properties for this class of material. Here, the authors show that a MOF liquid can be blended with another MOF component to produce domain-structured MOF glasses with single, tailorable glass transitions.

    • Louis Longley
    • , Sean M. Collins
    •  & Thomas D. Bennett

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Deciphering the dissolution process of silicate glasses and minerals from atomic to macroscopic scales is a major challenge. Here, the authors explain the passivating properties of the gel layer by its reorganization, which is a key mechanism accounting for very low apparent water diffusivity.

    • Stéphane Gin
    • , Marie Collin
    •  & Jincheng Du

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Detrimental serrated plastic flow via dynamic strain aging (DSA) in conventionally processed nickel superalloys usually occurs during high temperature deformation. Here, the authors suppress DSA via a unique microstructure obtained using additive manufacturing and propose a new dislocation-arrest model in nickel superalloys.

    • Allison M. Beese
    • , Zhuqing Wang
    •  & Dong Ma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thermosetting polymers are widely used in 3D printing owing to their superior mechanical stability, but once they are printed, the highly crosslinked polmyers cannot be reprocessed or repaired. Here the authors demonstrate a two-step polymerization strategy toward 3D printing of reprocessable thermosets.

    • Biao Zhang
    • , Kavin Kowsari
    •  & Qi Ge

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The nanoscale mechanisms behind the creep of calcium-silicate-hydrates remain difficult to model over long periods of time. Here, the authors use a three-staged incremental stress-marching technique to tie atomistic simulations and nanomechanical experimental measurements together.

    • A. Morshedifard
    • , S. Masoumi
    •  & M. J. Abdolhosseini Qomi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Producing ultrastable metallic glasses has always been associated with substrates heated close to the glass transition temperature. Here, the authors show that reducing the deposition rate of the metallic glass on a cold substrate produces ultrastable metallic glasses with remarkably improved stability.

    • P. Luo
    • , C. R. Cao
    •  & W. H. Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Medium entropy alloy CoCrNi has better mechanical properties than high entropy alloys such as CrMnFeCoNi, but why that is remains unclear. Here, the authors show that a nanostructured phase at lattice defects in CoCrNi causes its extraordinary properties, while it is magnetically frustrated and suppressed in CrMnFeCoNi.

    • Changning Niu
    • , Carlyn R. LaRosa
    •  & Maryam Ghazisaeidi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Iron-based bulk metallic glasses are remarkably plastic, but the origin of their plasticity remains challenging to isolate. Here, the authors use high resolution microscopy to show that nanocrystals are dispersed within the glass and form hard and soft zones that are responsible for enhancing ductility.

    • Baran Sarac
    • , Yurii P. Ivanov
    •  & Jürgen Eckert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Single crystal silicon cracking, a problem in solar cell operation, remains difficult to accurately predict. Here, the authors show that a silicon single crystal surprisingly cleaves without crack deviation, and that the crack front is accompanied by special marks due to local velocity changes.

    • Lv Zhao
    • , Didier Bardel
    •  & Daniel Nelias

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Glass forming liquids near the glass transition exhibit spatially heterogeneous dynamics, but it remains challenging to study their dynamics and structural origin on an atomic scale. Zhang et al. visualize liquid dynamics at a sub-nanometer and millisecond resolution using electron correlation microscopy.

    • Pei Zhang
    • , Jason J. Maldonis
    •  & Paul M. Voyles

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quasicrystal precipitation in alloys should be favored at dislocations, which break crystal symmetry, but almost all precipitates at dislocations are periodic. Here, the authors show rare quasicrystal formation along dislocations in a magnesium zinc alloy with atomic resolution.

    • Zhiqing Yang
    • , Lifeng Zhang
    •  & Stephen J. Pennycook

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Energy storage in thermoset shape memory polymers happens through entropy reduction during the programming step, but low energy release is known to be a bottleneck for wide-spread application. Here, the authors show a thermoset network that stores energy primarily through enthalpy increase by bond length change, which leads to an improved energy output.

    • Jizhou Fan
    •  & Guoqiang Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Most current methods for additive manufacturing of complex metallic 3D structures are limited to a resolution of 20–50 µm. Here, the authors developed a lithography-based process to produce 3D nanoporous nickel nanolattices with octet geometries and a resolution of 100 nm.

    • Andrey Vyatskikh
    • , Stéphane Delalande
    •  & Julia R. Greer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Deforming metallic glasses can rejuvenate them to higher energy states, but only in the shear bands where deformation is usually concentrated. Here, the authors use a notched setup to suppress shear banding and promote significant bulk softening of a zirconium-based metallic glass.

    • J. Pan
    • , Y. X. Wang
    •  & Y. Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Displacive martensitic transformations through lattice distortion usually involve a change from one crystal structure to another. Here however, the authors “melt” metastable Ti alloys during cooling and show that a martensitic transformation can lead to the formation of an intragranular amorphous phase.

    • Long Zhang
    • , Haifeng Zhang
    •  & Simon Pauly

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bacteria and other pathogens entering the blood stream can have serious consequences, which can even lead to death. Here, the authors developed a sieve containing nano-sized claws that capture and hold these intruders, thus aiding their removal from patient’s blood

    • Lizhi Liu
    • , Sheng Chen
    •  & Tie Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The atomic structure of grain boundary phases remains unknown and is difficult to investigate experimentally. Here, the authors use an evolutionary algorithm to computationally explore interface structures in higher dimensions and predict low-energy configurations, showing interface phases may be ubiquitous.

    • Qiang Zhu
    • , Amit Samanta
    •  & Timofey Frolov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recently, there has been significant progress on the application of laser-generated proton beams in material science. Here the authors demonstrate the benefit of employing such beams in stress testing different materials by examining their mechanical, optical, electrical, and morphological properties.

    • M. Barberio
    • , M. Scisciò
    •  & P. Antici

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conventional dealloying methods to produce bicontinuous open nanoporous structures for catalysis are limited to very few alloys and produce chemical waste. Here, the authors develop a green process, vapor-phase dealloying, to selectively remove high partial vapor pressure components and create nanoporosity in a wide range of alloys.

    • Zhen Lu
    • , Cheng Li
    •  & Mingwei Chen

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