Surfaces, interfaces and thin films articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical control is an alternative pathway to boost nonlinear transport in noncentrosymmetric systems. Here, the authors observe a light-induced giant enhancement of nonreciprocal transport coefficient as high as 105 A−1 T−1 at KTaO3-based Rashba interfaces.

    • Xu Zhang
    • , Tongshuai Zhu
    •  & Xuefeng Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Previous understanding of the coupling between ferroelectric structure and magnetic texture in BiFeO3 has relied on mesoscale measurements. Here, the authors image coupling directly, showing a complex spin cycloid controlled with electric field.

    • Peter Meisenheimer
    • , Guy Moore
    •  & Ramamoorthy Ramesh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exchange bias occurs in a variety of magnetic materials and heterostructures. The quintessential example occurs in antiferromagnetic/ferromagnetic heterostructures and has been employed extensively in magnetic memory devices. Here, via a specific field training protocol, the authors demonstrate an exchange bias of up to 400mT in odd layered MnBi2Te4.

    • Su Kong Chong
    • , Yang Cheng
    •  & Kang L. Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetic fields can enhance electrocatalysis, yet its effect on mass transport has been overlooked. Here, the authors track the motion induced on the electrolyte ions, demonstrating that mass transport effects can double the catalyst activity with low reactant availability, as in oxygen reduction.

    • Priscila Vensaus
    • , Yunchang Liang
    •  & Magalí Lingenfelder

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Moiré patterns have been experimentally observed in heterostructures comprised of topological insulator films. Here, the authors propose that topological insulator-based moiré heterostructures could be a host of isolated topologically non-trivial moiré minibands for the study of the interplay between topology and correlation.

    • Kaijie Yang
    • , Zian Xu
    •  & Chao-Xing Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The interplay between stacking configurations and atom intercalation in van der Waals materials has been rarely characterized at the microscopic level. Here, the authors report an electron microscopy study of stacking-selective self-intercalation in Nb1+xSe2 films, showing potential for nanoscale engineering of electronic properties in van der Waals materials and devices.

    • Hongguang Wang
    • , Jiawei Zhang
    •  & Hidenori Takagi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The strong ionic bond in salt is broken by electrostatic interactions with water, but direct observation at the level of a single ion is challenging. Here, the authors have visualized the preferential dissolution of an anion by manipulating a single water molecule.

    • Huijun Han
    • , Yunjae Park
    •  & Hyung-Joon Shin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recently, signatures of quantum spin liquid have been reported in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides. Here the authors report evidence of such state in 1T-NbSe2 via the measurements of the Kondo effect in a 1T-1H heterostructure, further supported by measurements for magnetic molecules on 1T-NbSe2.

    • Quanzhen Zhang
    • , Wen-Yu He
    •  & Yeliang Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors theoretically propose a simple microscopic mechanism for light-induced superconductivity based on a boson coupled to an electronic interband transition. The electron-electron attraction needed for the superconductivity can be resonantly amplified when the boson’s frequency is close to the energy difference between the two electronic bands. The model can be engineered using a 2D heterostructure.

    • Christian J. Eckhardt
    • , Sambuddha Chattopadhyay
    •  & Marios H. Michael

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The understanding of salty water droplet freezing is limited. The authors examine the formation of brine film on top of frozen salty droplets and discover a new ice crystal growth pattern sprouting from the bottom of the brine film.

    • Fuqiang Chu
    • , Shuxin Li
    •  & Nenad Miljkovic

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The spin texture of a magnetic system can host a variety of topological spin textures, the most famous of these being skyrmions. Here, Volkov et al demonstrate higher order vorticity in magnetic wireframe nanostructures and introduce a general protocol for the creation of arbitrary numbers of vortices and antivortices in such wireframe structures.

    • Oleksii M. Volkov
    • , Oleksandr V. Pylypovskyi
    •  & Denys Makarov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors use high-resolution electron energy-loss spectroscopy to study the phonon dispersion of monolayer hexagonal boron nitride. They observe that the longitudinal optical (LO) and transverse optical (TO) phonons at the Brillouin zone centre exhibit no energy splitting, contrary to the conventional LO-TO splitting seen in bulk materials.

    • Jiade Li
    • , Li Wang
    •  & Xuetao Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite having all the ingredients required for the formation of two-dimensional ferromagnetism, achieving such a magnetic state in atomically thin metal-organic coordination networks has proved to be a persistent challenge. Here, Lobo-Checa et al demonstrate 2Dferromagnetism in a self-assembled network, exhibiting coercive fields over 2 Tesla and a Curie temperature of 35K.

    • Jorge Lobo-Checa
    • , Leyre Hernández-López
    •  & Fernando Bartolomé

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding excitonic optical excitations is integral to improving optoelectronic and photovoltaic semiconductor devices. Here, Bennecke et al. use photoemission exciton tomography to unravel the multiorbital electron and hole contributions of entangled excitonic states in the prototypical organic semiconductor C60.

    • Wiebke Bennecke
    • , Andreas Windischbacher
    •  & Stefan Mathias

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors report on the fabrication of strained wrinkles in monolayer WSe2 by placing the material on Au nanoconical substrates. They investigate the correlation between topographical stress factors and localised, quantum-dot-like photoluminescence emission.

    • Emanuil S. Yanev
    • , Thomas P. Darlington
    •  & P. James Schuck

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stabilizing charge density wave states in low-dimensional systems is challenging. Here, the authors stabilize an ordered incommensurate charge density wave at elevated temperatures via endotaxial synthesis of TaS2 polytype heterostructures, where charge density wave layers are encapsulated within metallic layers.

    • Suk Hyun Sung
    • , Nishkarsh Agarwal
    •  & Robert Hovden

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Charge order has been typically reported in doped systems with high d-electron occupancy. Here the authors demonstrate a charge-ordered insulating state in a La-doped SrTiO3 epitaxial film which has the lowest d-electron occupancy and attribute it to surface distortion that favours electron-phonon coupling.

    • Kitae Eom
    • , Bongwook Chung
    •  & Jaichan Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Blue phosphorene (BlueP) is a 2D phosphorus allotrope predicted to host Dirac fermions and other interesting electronic properties. Here, the authors report the growth of large-area BlueP films with ordered chiral nanostructures on Cu(111) substrates, expanding the range of its potential applications.

    • Ye-Heng Song
    • , M. U. Muzaffar
    •  & Zhenyu Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Higgs mode in condensed matter physics refers to the oscillations of the amplitude of the order parameter, and single Higgs modes have been studies in various systems. Here the authors report real-space observation of two coupled Higgs modes in a 1D charge density wave phase of CuTe.

    • SeongJin Kwon
    • , Hyunjin Jung
    •  & Han Woong Yeom

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In the field of multiferroic thin films, attaining low-temperature epitaxy has been a long-standing problem. In this work, authors propose a pathway to significantly reduce the BiFeO3 thin film growth temperature using the BaBiPbO3 template.

    • Sajid Husain
    • , Isaac Harris
    •  & Ramamoorthy Ramesh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light-induced hydrophilicity of TiO2 and ZnO surfaces rely on the same physics and involve excitation of electron-hole pairs. Here, the authors propose and test a model for the photowetting of TiO2 and ZnO thin films. The results suggest design rules for materials exhibiting photocatalytic wetting.

    • Rucha Anil Deshpande
    • , Jesper Navne
    •  & Rafael Taboryski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Gas sensors typically detect only few specific gases; the authors show a broad-spectrum sensor based on correlated 2-dimensional electron gas (C-2DEG), which detects various gases quantitatively and measures partial pressures, through a purely physical mechanism.

    • Yuhao Hong
    • , Long Wei
    •  & Zhaoliang Liao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conventionally, a continuous motion or “dynamic friction” is expected to take place after the initial rupture under friction. Here, the authors perform direct measurement of real contact and slip at the frictional interface and show that the secondary rupture takes place after each initial rupture.

    • Songlin Shi
    • , Meng Wang
    •  & Jay Fineberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Developing efficient reservoir computing hardware that combines optically excited acoustic and spin waves with high spatial density remains a challenge. In this work, the authors propose a design capable of recognizing visual shapes drawn by a laser within remarkably confined spaces, down to 10 square microns.

    • Dmytro D. Yaremkevich
    • , Alexey V. Scherbakov
    •  & Manfred Bayer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Heat conduction in solids is known to be contributed by phonons and electrons. Here, authors observe enhanced and non-diffusive thermal conductance mediated by surface phonon polaritons in polar dielectric nanoribbon waveguides.

    • Yu Pei
    • , Li Chen
    •  & Renkun Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ferroelectric transistors are promising building blocks for developing energy-efficient memory and logic applications. Here, the authors report a record high 300 K resistance on-off ratio achieved in ferroelectric-gated Mott transistors by exploiting a charge transfer layer to tailor the channel carrier density and mitigate the ferroelectric depolarization effect.

    • Yifei Hao
    • , Xuegang Chen
    •  & Xia Hong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Grain boundary atomic structures of crystalline materials have long been believed to be commensurate with the crystal periodicity of the adjacent crystals. Here, the authors discover an incommensurate grain boundary structure based on direct observations and theoretical calculations.

    • Takehito Seki
    • , Toshihiro Futazuka
    •  & Naoya Shibata

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Examples of 2D heavy-fermion materials are rare, and the details of their electronic structure have remained elusive. Here, Nakamura et al. report the synthesis and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements of a monolayer Kondo lattice, YbCu2, on a Cu(111) surface with an estimated coherence temperature of 30 K.

    • Takuto Nakamura
    • , Hiroki Sugihara
    •  & Shin-ichi Kimura

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ice formation on grooved surfaces is ubiquitous, but controlling orientation is difficult due to lack of mechanistic insight. Here, the authors observed oriented growth using graphene oxide nanosheets as probes, revealing the effect of groove size, and programmed ice growth to fabricate freeze-cast metamaterials.

    • Meng Li
    • , Nifang Zhao
    •  & Hao Bai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors study transport in the superconducting state of infinite-layer nickelate Nd0.8Sr0.2NiO2 films using a Corbino-disk configuration, finding that the magnetoresistance changes from isotropic to four-fold anisotropic with increasing magnetic field. At even higher field, an additional two-fold component emerges, which coincides with an anomalous upturn of the critical field.

    • Haoran Ji
    • , Yi Liu
    •  & Jian Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors study (Bi,Sb)2Te3/FeTe bilayers, which feature emergent superconductivity at the interface with Tc ~ 12 K. Through angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and electrical transport measurements, they argue that the Dirac-fermion-mediated Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida-type interaction weakens antiferromagnetic order in FeTe layer, allowing for superconductivity.

    • Hemian Yi
    • , Lun-Hui Hu
    •  & Cui-Zu Chang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors deposit non-superconducting metallic thin films on surfaces of the kagome Chern magnet TbMn6Sn6 and observe emergent superconductivity even though neither component is a superconductor. Furthermore, the superconducting state is quasi-two-dimensional and coexists with ferromagnetism, consistent with possible spin-triplet pairing and topological superconductivity.

    • He Wang
    • , Yanzhao Liu
    •  & Jian Wang

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