Structure of solids and liquids articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The phase diagram of type-II superconductors exhibits a multitude of different phases, whose study can shed light on domain nucleation and morphology. Here the authors use neutron grating interferometry to investigate the nucleation and phase changes of an intermediate mixed state in a niobium superconductor.

    • T. Reimann
    • , S. Mühlbauer
    •  & C. Grünzweig

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lithium and manganese-rich transition metal oxides are a class of promising battery electrodes but their structures are a subject of a controversial debate. Here, the authors use a variety of materials characterization tools to unravel the structural ambiguities in these materials.

    • Alpesh Khushalchand Shukla
    • , Quentin M. Ramasse
    •  & Guoying Chen

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Hierarchically organized zeolites are materials retaining the crystalline order and associated functionality of bulk zeolites while also integrating a multilevel pore network. Here, the authors review the raft of techniques applied to characterize their crystal, pore and active site structures.

    • Sharon Mitchell
    • , Ana B. Pinar
    •  & Javier Pérez-Ramírez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The structural heterogeneity in liquid water is commonly believed to disappear beyond 50 fs due to the strong intermolecular interaction. Here, the authors show frequency-dependent vibrational relaxation, which indicates the persistence of structural heterogeneity on a picosecond timescale.

    • Sietse T. van der Post
    • , Cho-Shuen Hsieh
    •  & Johannes Hunger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The atomic structure of metallic glasses is related to their properties such as the ability of materials to form glasses. Here, the authors develop a new approach to model the atomic structure of metallic glasses, to enable a better connection between atomic structure and glass properties.

    • K. J. Laws
    • , D. B. Miracle
    •  & M. Ferry

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metallic glasses (MG) have higher yield strengths than crystalline alloys but at the same time are very brittle, which has hampered practical applications. Here, the authors use flash Joule heating to design a MG-matrix composite with a uniform distribution of ductile crystals, improving mechanical properties.

    • I. V. Okulov
    • , I. V. Soldatov
    •  & J. Eckert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mechanical relaxation processes in glasses can provide information on the structural and mechanical properties of glasses. Here, the authors observe a fast secondary relaxation process in La-based metallic glasses, providing information on the inelasticity of metallic glasses.

    • Q. Wang
    • , S.T. Zhang
    •  & J. Lu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The existing glass transition theories show little dimensional dependence. Here Flenner et al. disprove this general consensus by finding that, for instance, the bond-orientational relaxation is decoupled from the translational relaxation in two dimensions, but not in three dimensions.

    • Elijah Flenner
    •  & Grzegorz Szamel

  • Article |

    The initiation of explosions is thought to result from ‘hot spot’ generation at localized microstructures in energetic material, although experimental evidence has been limited. Here, the authors show controllable hot spot formation in solid composites using an ultrasonic hammer, introducing a new method of study.

    • Sizhu You
    • , Ming-Wei Chen
    •  & Kenneth S. Suslick

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Interfaces between two materials often show interesting properties. Here, the authors demonstrate that diamond and cubic boron nitride, the hardest materials known, can be grown on top of each other through a novel misfit accommodation mechanism, forming a two-dimensional electron gas at the interface.

    • Chunlin Chen
    • , Zhongchang Wang
    •  & Yuichi Ikuhara

  • Article |

    The control of electrical charges through an electronic field is the basis of modern electronic devices such as the transistor. Here, the authors achieve charge density modulation through a ferroelectric field effect in germanium and barium titanate thin-film heterostructures.

    • Patrick Ponath
    • , Kurt Fredrickson
    •  & Alexander A. Demkov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Complexes that form between oppositely charged polyelectrolytes may be solid or liquid. Here, Perry et al.show that chirality in polypeptides can determine the state of those complexes based on a propensity for hydrogen-bond formation.

    • Sarah L. Perry
    • , Lorraine Leon
    •  & Matthew Tirrell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    ZrO2 is known to be a very poor glass former, namely an extremely fragile liquid, while its high melting temperature impedes a mechanistic understanding. Here, Kohara et al. show the absence of intermediate-range ordering beyond the correlation between oxide polyhedron units in ZrO2upon melting.

    • Shinji Kohara
    • , Jaakko Akola
    •  & Takeshi Usuki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although Fe3O4is widely investigated for a variety of applications, the relation between some defects and its properties remains poorly understood. Here, the authors use high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and simulations to determine the atomic structure of the common antiphase boundary defects.

    • Keith P. McKenna
    • , Florian Hofer
    •  & Yuichi Ikuhara

  • Article |

    Complex metal hydrides are of interest for applications such as hydrogen storage, solid-state phosphors and solid electrolytes. Here the authors present the synthesis and properties of 30 complex hydride compounds with a perovskite crystal structure, based on the BH4−anion and new synthesis protocols involving rare-earth elements.

    • Pascal Schouwink
    • , Morten B. Ley
    •  & Radovan Černý

  • Article |

    Medium-range structural ordering is expected to exist in supercooled liquids yet direct probes of this are difficult to achieve. Capponi et al.report a new metastable phase of organic molecular glasses exhibiting long-living, highly enhanced orientational order above its glass transition temperature.

    • Simona Capponi
    • , Simone Napolitano
    •  & Michael Wübbenhorst

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The dynamics and structure of the glass transition in liquids is still debated. Using particle-level confocal microscopy, Leocmach and Tanaka investigate supercooled colloidal liquids and distinguish different scenarios for glassy slow dynamics, suggesting that local ordering may only play a minor role.

    • Mathieu Leocmach
    •  & Hajime Tanaka

  • Article |

    Ultrafast excitation offers new routes to controlling material properties on short timescales, but probes are needed to better understand the changes. By studying the phonon spectrum of VO2 in the time domain, Wall et al. find a prompt change in lattice potential after a photoinduced structural transition.

    • S. Wall
    • , D. Wegkamp
    •  & M. Wolf

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