Structural materials articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Low dissipation of fundamental mode is a determinant factor in nanomechanical resonator design. Here the authors realize soft clamping for the fundamental mode in a nanomechanical tensile structure achieving low loss, low mass, and low resonance frequency that render it a perfect force sensor.

    • M. J. Bereyhi
    • , A. Beccari
    •  & N. J. Engelsen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Complexities of laser-material interactions pose a challenge to minimize defects in additively manufactured metal parts. Here the authors visualize all phases of matter simultaneously to expand understanding of the interactions and show atmospheric information can characterize process stability.

    • I. Bitharas
    • , N. Parab
    •  & A. J. Moore

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dislocation engineering is important for designing structural materials. Here the authors demonstrate that a high-entropy oxide ceramic with a high density of edge dislocations can be stabilized by increasing the compositional complexity, resulting in enhanced fracture toughness.

    • Yi Han
    • , Xiangyang Liu
    •  & Chunlei Wan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Intrinsic self-healing polymers attract increasing attention but often suffer from a narrow self-healing temperature range and unsatisfactory mechanical performance. Here, the authors use click chemistry to develop a library of catalyst-free reversible polythioureas and demonstrate that the self-healing temperature and mechanical properties can be adjusted by controlling the flexibility and the steric environment.

    • Yan Mei Li
    • , Ze Ping Zhang
    •  & Ming Qiu Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stiffness, toughness, and fatigue resistance are seemingly incompatible in materials design. Here the authors demonstrate a hierarchical crosslinking strategy using lithium ion oxygen interactions and PMMA nanoaggregates to enable energy dissipation in the network, leading to stiff yet tough polymer materials.

    • Mengxue Li
    • , Lili Chen
    •  & Chao Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Glass-to-glass transitions can help understanding the glass nature, but it remains difficult to tune metallic glasses into significantly different glass states. Here the authors demonstrate the high-entropy effects in glass-to-glass transitions of high-entropy metallic glasses.

    • Hengwei Luan
    • , Xin Zhang
    •  & Ke-Fu Yao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Engineering applications of nanostructured metals are limited by their complex manufacturing technology and poor microstructural stability. Here the authors report a facile technology that enables a mass production of nanostructured Ti6Al4V5Cu alloys with high microstructural stability.

    • Hai Wang
    • , Wei Song
    •  & Ke Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Length scale dependence is important for understanding the collective relaxation dynamics in glass-forming liquids. Here, the authors find in liquid Ca0.4K0.6(NO3)1.4 a change in the dominant relaxation mechanisms around 2.6 Å, below which the relaxation process exhibits a temperature independent distribution and more Arrhenius-like behavior.

    • Peng Luo
    • , Yanqin Zhai
    •  & Y Z

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metallic microsamples deform in a sequence of abrupt strain bursts. Here, the authors demonstrate by analysing the elastic waves emitted by these bursts that this intermittent process resembles earthquakes in several aspects, although on completely different spatial and temporal scales.

    • Péter Dusán Ispánovity
    • , Dávid Ugi
    •  & István Groma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While origami-inspired metamaterials can spatially fold, they usually collapse along the deployment direction limiting applicability. Here authors introduce a cellular structure that can be reprogrammed in-situ to not only deploy and rigidly flat-fold but also lock and offer rigidity across all directions.

    • Amin Jamalimehr
    • , Morad Mirzajanzadeh
    •  & Damiano Pasini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Finding efficient photothermoelectric materials remains critical to the development of clean and renewable energy conversion technologies. Here, authors prepare a silver nanostructure film/carbon nanotube film heterojunction with excellent photothermal and photoelectric conversion performance.

    • Bocheng Lv
    • , Yu Liu
    •  & Jia-Lin Sun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Synthesizing architected materials with strong adhesion has been challenging. Here the authors fabricate architected polymer networks by sequential polymerization and photolithography, and attain adherent interface by topological entanglement.

    • Xiao Liu
    • , Jingping Wu
    •  & Jian Hu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nature-inspired design motifs have contributed to the development of advanced materials. Here the authors present a segmental design motif to realize a compression-resisting lightweight mechanical metamaterial with a progressive failure behavior and rotational degree of freedom.

    • Wei Wang
    • , Shu Jian Chen
    •  & Kwesi Sagoe-Crentsil

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dissolution of minerals in water is ubiquitous in nature, its mechanism at the atomic level still under debate. Here, the authors investigate the dissolution mechanism of tricalcium silicate at early stage by ab initio molecular dynamics and metadynamics simulations.

    • Yunjian Li
    • , Hui Pan
    •  & Zongjin Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The transportation sector is gradually evolving to become independent of fossil fuels. Here, the authors report a metal-based monolithic solid oxide fuel cell with a power density of 5.6 kW/L suitable for transport applications.

    • Stéven Pirou
    • , Belma Talic
    •  & Anke Hagen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Interstitials can substantially strengthen metals. Here the authors show a massive interstitial solid solution (MISS) approach enabling a model multicomponent alloy to achieve near-theoretical strength together with large deformability.

    • Chang Liu
    • , Wenjun Lu
    •  & Dierk Raabe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Defects induced by process instabilities in metal additive manufacturing limit its applications. Here, the authors report controlling laser-powder bed interaction instabilities by nanoparticles leads to defect lean metal additive manufacturing.

    • Minglei Qu
    • , Qilin Guo
    •  & Lianyi Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is limited understanding of the Invar effect at atomic scale. Here the authors show that the Invar effect is not only a macroscopic effect, but also has a clear atomistic equivalent in the average distance of Fe–Fe pair as well as higher-order atomic shells composed of multiple atom species.

    • Alexander Firlus
    • , Mihai Stoica
    •  & Jörg F. Löffler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding deformation of Mg along the c-axis is important for wrought processing of Mg. Here the authors report deformation graining in submicron single crystal Mg where the initial single crystal evolves into ultrafine grains that rejuvenates dislocation activities, enabling large plasticity.

    • Bo-Yu Liu
    • , Zhen Zhang
    •  & Zhi-Wei Shan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The existence of chemical medium-range order (CMRO) in high- and medium- entropy alloys remains conjectural. Here the authors show evidences of CMRO by electron diffraction spots of lattice periodicity, observable entities, occupancy of preferential species, and stable sizes upon deformation.

    • Jing Wang
    • , Ping Jiang
    •  & Xiaolei Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is challenging to understand failure mechanisms under a prolonged low-amplitude loading. Here the authors perform large-scale simulations to better understand the fatigue crack growth mechanism in vacuum, providing an atomic-scale origin for a pervasive structural failure mode.

    • Mingjie Zhao
    • , Wenjia Gu
    •  & Derek H. Warner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Passive films on metal surfaces provide better corrosion resistance, but they can degrade in long-term service. Here the authors demonstrate a strategy to engineer crystallographic configuration at the metal/film interface to further improve corrosion resistance.

    • X. X. Wei
    • , B. Zhang
    •  & X. L. Ma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Kirigami, a traditional paper cutting art, offers a promising strategy for 2D-to-3D shape morphing through cut-guided deformation. Here, authors report a simple strategy of cut boundary curvature-guided 3D shape morphing and its applications in non-destructive grippers and dynamically conformable heaters.

    • Yaoye Hong
    • , Yinding Chi
    •  & Jie Yin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thin-film composite membranes formed by conventional interfacial polymerization generally suffer from depth heterogeneity of the polyamide layer. Here, authors investigate salt-mediated polymerization approaches to achieve membranes with tuneable structural homogeneity.

    • Liang Shen
    • , Ruihuan Cheng
    •  & Yan Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Several strategies have been explored for overcoming limitations on the ultimate extensibility and softness of silicone elastomers but they either increase process complexity or lead to mechanical instabilities in the resulting elastomers. Here the authors report an easy curing reaction which allows versatile tailoring of elastomer properties exceeding their intrinsic limitations

    • Pengpeng Hu
    • , Jeppe Madsen
    •  & Anne Ladegaard Skov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Explanation is still lacking for the exotic nonlinear, nonuniform deformation of mechanism-based materials. Here the authors present an analytical framework for a canonical mechanism that can not only predict, but also precisely control deformation in these materials.

    • Michael Czajkowski
    • , Corentin Coulais
    •  & D. Zeb Rocklin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding of the atomic-scale mechanisms of rejuvenation of bulk metallic glass still remains unclear. Here, using configurational entropy derived from X-ray experiments, authors show a clear picture of the relaxation process during annealing of a metallic glass.

    • Florian Spieckermann
    • , Daniel Şopu
    •  & Jürgen Eckert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The origins of deformation twins in Mg have remained unclear in the past. Here the authors, by combining in situ experimental observations and atomistic simulations, capture the rapid twinning phenomena in Mg crystals and show that twinning occurs through pure atomic shuffle.

    • Lin Jiang
    • , Mingyu Gong
    •  & Julie M. Schoenung

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thermal metamaterials can be used to manipulate heat flow but experimental fabrication is challenging. Here, the authors report robustly printable freeform thermal metamaterials to tackle this challenge by topology optimization and 3D printing.

    • Wei Sha
    • , Mi Xiao
    •  & Run Hu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Multivalent metal batteries are considered a viable alternative to Li-ion batteries. Here, the authors report a novel aqueous battery system when manganese ions are shuttled between an Mn metal/carbon composite anode and inorganic or organic cathodes.

    • Songshan Bi
    • , Shuai Wang
    •  & Zhiqiang Niu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Grain boundary can change its structure upon deformation. Here, the authors show that during this process, grain boundary mobility can be tuned dynamically via a self-stimulated twinning process.

    • Qishan Huang
    • , Qi Zhu
    •  & Jiangwei Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The present manuscript reports a Bayesian deep-learning approach for the automatic, robust classification of polycrystalline systems of both synthetic and experimental origin. The unsupervised analysis of the internal neural-network representations reveals physically understandable patterns.

    • Andreas Leitherer
    • , Angelo Ziletti
    •  & Luca M. Ghiringhelli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Individual addition of O or Al is known to deteriorate ductility of Ti alloys, especially at cryogenic temperatures. Here the authors demonstrate a counter-intuitive effect where significant addition of both Al and O substantially improves both strength and ductility in a Ti-6Al-0.3 O ternary alloy.

    • Yan Chong
    • , Ruopeng Zhang
    •  & Andrew M. Minor

  • Article
    | Open Access

    NEMS devices, nano-electro-mechanical systems, by virtue of their minute size, offer ultra-high sensitivity, though at the expense of manufacturing complexity. Here, Stassi et al succeed in manufacturing high quality factor NEMS devices using high resolution 3D printing.

    • Stefano Stassi
    • , Ido Cooperstein
    •  & Carlo Ricciardi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The local variation of grain boundary atomic structure and chemistry caused by segregation of impurities influences the macroscopic properties of polycrystalline materials. Here, the effect of co-segregation of carbon and boron on the depletion of aluminum in a α − Fe grain boundary is shown.

    • A. Ahmadian
    • , D. Scheiber
    •  & G. Dehm

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mechanical metamaterials can be engineered with properties not possible in ordinary materials. Here the authors demonstrate and study an active metamaterial with self-sensing characteristics that enables odd elastic properties not observed in passive media.

    • Yangyang Chen
    • , Xiaopeng Li
    •  & Guoliang Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Strain glass is a new glassy state characterized by frozen ferroelastic nanodomains. Here, the authors discover a low-temperature feature in the specific heat of a strain glass, which is similar to the well-known boson peak anomaly of structural glasses, but cannot be explained by existing mechanisms.

    • Shuai Ren
    • , Hong-Xiang Zong
    •  & Wei-Hua Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanomechanical resonators can be improved through rational design. Using an inverse design approach the authors achieve ultra-coherent resonators and pave the way towards the engineering of high performance micro- and nanomechanical resonators.

    • Dennis Høj
    • , Fengwen Wang
    •  & Ulrik Lund Andersen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The contribution of vibrations to the stability of high-entropy ceramics is still controversial. Here the authors computationally integrate disorder parameterization, phonon modelling, and thermodynamic characterization to investigate the role of vibrations to the stability of high-entropy carbides.

    • Marco Esters
    • , Corey Oses
    •  & Stefano Curtarolo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wear-resistant metals have long been a pursuit of reducing wear-related energy and material loss. Here the authors present the ‘reactive wear protection’ strategy via friction-induced in situ formation of strong and deformable oxide nanocomposites on a surface.

    • Chang Liu
    • , Zhiming Li
    •  & Dierk Raabe

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