Surfaces, interfaces and thin films articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The high solar reflectance needed by radiative cooling is easily dampened by environmental aging. Here, authors describe durable cooling performance against heavy soiling and long-term ultraviolet exposure of paint-based coatings, enhancing the potential of radiative cooling for real-world applications.

    • Jianing Song
    • , Wenluan Zhang
    •  & Xu Deng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Heterostructures based on (111)-oriented KTaO3crystals are a new platform for studying oxide interfaces. Gate-tunable superconductivity in 2D electron gases at the surface of (111)-oriented KTaO3is now reported, with the superconducting transition being of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type.

    • S. Mallik
    • , G. C. Ménard
    •  & N. Bergeal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Long-range magnetic order of quasiparticle doped holes is important for understanding the physics of cuprate superconductors, albeit difficult to probe in experiments. Ong et al. observe ferromagnetism of quasiparticle doped holes in a cuprate heterostructure and discuss implications for cuprates in the ground state.

    • B. L. Ong
    • , K. Jayaraman
    •  & A. Rusydi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lower-dimensional superconductors are typically synthesized on insulating substrates. Here, the authors find that the hybrid electronic structure formed at the interface between a lead film and a semiconducting black phosphorus substrate significantly renormalizes the superconductivity in the lead film.

    • Anand Kamlapure
    • , Manuel Simonato
    •  & Alexander Ako Khajetoorians

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Defect-free surfaces with excess charge are typically described as a homogeneous 2D electron gas. Here, in contrast, the authors find that the KTaO3(001) surface hosts a charge density wave coexisting with a pattern of electron polarons, highly localized states of excess electrons bound to a lattice distortion.

    • Michele Reticcioli
    • , Zhichang Wang
    •  & Cesare Franchini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Most machine-learning force fields dismiss long-range interactions. Here the authors demonstrate the BIGDML approach for building materials’ potential energy surfaces that enables a broad range of materials simulations within accuracies better than 1 meV/atom using just 10–200 structures for training.

    • Huziel E. Sauceda
    • , Luis E. Gálvez-González
    •  & Alexandre Tkatchenko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Charging of interfaces between water and hydrophobic media is a mysterious feature whose nature and origin remain under debate. Here, the authors use opto-thermophoretic tweezers to investigate the interfacial behavior at water/oil interfaces in terms of thermal perturbation of dipole arrangement.

    • Youngsun Kim
    • , Hongru Ding
    •  & Yuebing Zheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In metallic liquids, the fragility is difficult to predict and measure. Here, the authors present the film inflation method, which reveals large fragility variations across Mg–Cu–Y, and introduce the crystallization complexity as additional contribution to glass forming ability.

    • Sebastian A. Kube
    • , Sungwoo Sohn
    •  & Jan Schroers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ferromagnet/spacer/ferromagnet sandwiches have been studied extensively, and used in a variety of spintronic devices. Here, Zhou et al. create an all anti-ferromagnetic sandwich of Fe2O3/Cr2O3/Fe2O3, and demonstrate strong orthogonal coupling between the top and bottom Fe2O3 layers.

    • Yongjian Zhou
    • , Liyang Liao
    •  & Cheng Song

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Harmonic measurements have been used extensively in ferromagnetic/heavy metal heterostructures to characterize the magnetization dynamic; however, it has remained unclear about whether such techniques could be applied to antiferromagnetic devices. Here, Cheng et al demonstrate such a harmonic measurement approach in an antiferromagnet.

    • Yang Cheng
    • , Egecan Cogulu
    •  & Fengyuan Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thin-film high-entropy alloy (HEA) superconductors have recently attracted a lot of attention, but their critical current density and potential usefulness in engineering applications has remained unclear. Here, the authors fabricate HEA films with remarkably high critical current density and resistance to radiation damage.

    • Soon-Gil Jung
    • , Yoonseok Han
    •  & Tuson Park

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Skyrmions, topological spin textures, can be pinned by defects present in the material that hosts them, influencing their motion. Here, Gruber et al show that the skyrmions are pinned at their boundary where the finite size of the skyrmions governs their pinning, and they demonstrate that certain pinning sites can switched on and off in-situ.

    • Raphael Gruber
    • , Jakub Zázvorka
    •  & Mathias Kläui

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Anisotropic functional patterned surfaces have shown significant applications in microfluidics, biomedicine, and optoelectronics. Here, authors demonstrate a fast and mask-free etching method for accurate surface patterning by confined decomposition, enabling the efficient fabrication of complex patterns.

    • Rui Feng
    • , Fei Song
    •  & Yu-Zhong Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A uniform particle deposition is crucial for sensitive applications, such as sensors and electronics. Here, authors introduce a passive protocol to suppress the coffee-ring effect and form uniform films at micro- and nanoscales combining superhydrophilic substrate with a neutral-wetting low-roughness mold.

    • Hossein Zargartalebi
    • , S. Hossein Hejazi
    •  & Amir Sanati-Nezhad

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Experiments in a tunable graphene superlattice show that the unusual 1/B periodic resistance oscillations at high temperatures in the energy spectrum of electrons in a 2D periodic potential, known as the Hofstadter butterfly, coexist with oscillations due to commensurability between the electron cyclotron radius and the superlattice’s period.

    • Robin Huber
    • , Max-Niklas Steffen
    •  & Jonathan Eroms

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Materials with strong Rashba-type spin-orbit coupling hold promise for spintronic applications and the investigation of topological phases of matter. Here, the authors report a method to generate layer-by-layer defect gradients in a van der Waals material, inducing broken spatial inversion symmetry and Rashba effect in the engineered layers.

    • Junhyeon Jo
    • , Jung Hwa Kim
    •  & Jung-Woo Yoo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artificial microswimmers can emulate the autonomous regulation of chemotactic motility of living organisms. Frank et al. realize a chemotactic locomotion of emulsion droplets, composed of two phase-separated fluids, that can be reversibly directed up or down a chemical concentration gradient.

    • Bradley D. Frank
    • , Saveh Djalali
    •  & Lukas Zeininger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is challenging to construct lateral homostructures with controllable geometry and repeated alternating configurations. Here the authors develop a generic approach for fabricating twisted lateral homostructures with tunable crystal orientation, epitaxial constrain, and phase stability.

    • Ping-Chun Wu
    • , Chia-Chun Wei
    •  & Jan-Chi Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Current limitations of spintronics devices based on bulk topological materials stimulate the search for new materials and structures with interesting spin properties. Here the authors report a chiral spin texture around the Fermi level related to structural symmetry breaking in a TaSe2 layer grown on a Bi2Se3 surface.

    • Andrey Polyakov
    • , Katayoon Mohseni
    •  & Stuart S. P. Parkin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electric circuits represent a versatile platform for simulations of exotic phenomena that are difficult to realize is condensed matter systems. Here the authors simulate particle statistics-dependent Bloch oscillations with electric circuits and observe features predicted for a model of anyons on a 1D lattice.

    • Weixuan Zhang
    • , Hao Yuan
    •  & Xiangdong Zhang

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Controlling dimensionality and strain in actinide heterostructures will provide unrivaled opportunities for exploring novel quantum phenomena. We discuss the promises, challenges, and synthesis routes for these actinide-bearing heterostructures with complex electron correlations for functional and energy materials.

    • Cody A. Dennett
    • , Narayan Poudel
    •  & Krzysztof Gofryk

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Non f-electron systems containing narrow electronic band and localized moments are a useful platform to study the Kondo lattice problem. Here, by using scanning tunneling microscopy, the authors show a transition from the insulating gap to a tuneable Kondo resonance in 1T-TaS2 by Pb intercalation.

    • Shiwei Shen
    • , Chenhaoping Wen
    •  & Shichao Yan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Previous studies of magnetic adatom chains on superconducting substrates have mostly focused on the regime of dense chains and classical spins. Here, using scanning tunnelling microscopy, the authors study the excitation spectra of Fe chains on a NbSe2 surface, adatom by adatom, in the regime of quantum spins.

    • Eva Liebhaber
    • , Lisa M. Rütten
    •  & Katharina J. Franke

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Single-layer NbSe2 has a charge density wave with two degenerate domains, related by mirror reflection. Here, using scanning tunneling microscopy, the authors observe the time-dependent movement of domain walls, and demonstrate reversible switching between the two domain types using a voltage pulse from the microscope tip.

    • Xuan Song
    • , Liwei Liu
    •  & Yeliang Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    One challenge for encoding information in chiral spin textures is how to read the information electrically. Here, Lima Fernandes et al. show that chiral spin textures exhibit a magnetoresistance signature which could allow for efficient electric readout of the chirality and helicity.

    • Imara Lima Fernandes
    • , Stefan Blügel
    •  & Samir Lounis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the dynamics of grain boundaries and their melting behaviour is important for controlling the mechanical properties of materials. Now, experiments show that grain boundaries can be superheated, and that they melt via a nucleation mechanism.

    • Xiuming Xiao
    • , Lilin Wang
    •  & Ziren Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The detection and quantification of hydrogen is becoming increasingly important in research on electronic materials and devices. Here the authors show that waveguide resonances enhance the sensitivity of neutron reflectometry, enabling fast, direct, and nondestructive measurements of hydrogen incorporation in thin-film structures.

    • L. Guasco
    • , Yu. N. Khaydukov
    •  & B. Keimer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To use skyrmions to store information, an effective method for writing and deleting them is required. Here, Chen et al demonstrate the writing and deleting of skyrmions at room temperature by using hydrogen adsorption to change the magnetic anisotropy of the metallic multilayer hosting the skyrmions.

    • Gong Chen
    • , Colin Ophus
    •  & Kai Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reducing the switching energy of ferroelectric films remains an important goal. Here, the authors elucidate the fundamental role of lattice dynamics in ferroelectric switching on both freestanding BiFeO3 membranes and films clamped to a substrate.

    • Qiwu Shi
    • , Eric Parsonnet
    •  & Ramamoorthy Ramesh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The current work finds that ordinary table salt behaves unexpectedly. The chloride ions alone dominate the electronic states at both edges of its band gap although sodium ions are also present. This is important when NaCl is used as an insulator.

    • Christopher C. Leon
    • , Abhishek Grewal
    •  & Olle Gunnarsson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The interplay between reduced dimensionality and interactions in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides has been of great research interest. Here the authors report an insulating dimer ground state in 1T-IrTe2, driven by the combined effect of the charge density wave instability and local atomic bond formation.

    • Jinwoong Hwang
    • , Kyoo Kim
    •  & Sung-Kwan Mo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Antiferromagnets offer the potential for higher speed and density than ferromagnetic materials for spintronic devices. Here, Reimers et al study the domain structure of CuMnAs, demonstrating the role of defects in stabilizing the location and orientation of antiferromagnetic domain walls.

    • Sonka Reimers
    • , Dominik Kriegner
    •  & Kevin W. Edmonds

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite promising for anti-icing applications, structured superhydrophobic surfaces usually lose their hydrophobicity after a few icing/melting cycles. Here, authors investigate specific structured surfaces and air bubbles on frozen ice droplets to propose three criteria to enable dewetting transitions.

    • Lizhong Wang
    • , Ze Tian
    •  & Minlin Zhong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Large strain gradient is crucial for flexoelectricity. Here, the authors reveal the generality and tunability of large strain gradients at grain boundaries in oxides, explaining the possible effects on the electrical activities of ceramics.

    • Mei Wu
    • , Xiaowei Zhang
    •  & Peng Gao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The metal-insulator transition is typically controlled by carrier accumulation or chemical doping. Here, the authors realize an alternative method based on resonant tunnelling in a double quantum well structure of strongly correlated oxides, which offers practical advantages over conventional methods.

    • R. Yukawa
    • , M. Kobayashi
    •  & H. Kumigashira

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bone implants with antibacterial and osteogenic properties are important for clinical applications, but creating both properties simultaneously remains challenging. Here, the authors demonstrate a self-activating implant using a hydroxyapatite and molybdenum disulfide coating which accelerates bone regeneration and at the same time prevents bacterial infection.

    • Jieni Fu
    • , Weidong Zhu
    •  & Shuilin Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conventional theories for interfacial thermal transport are derived from bulk phonon properties. Here, the authors report experimental observation of interfacial phonon modes localized at interfaces, changing how interfacial thermal transport should be understood.

    • Zhe Cheng
    • , Ruiyang Li
    •  & Samuel Graham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quasiparticle interference is a powerful tool for characterization of electronic structure which leverages scattering off defects; however, it is limited to quasi two-dimensional materials. Here, the authors demonstrate a method for reconstructing electronic structure of three-dimensional materials from quasiparticle interference data.

    • C. A. Marques
    • , M. S. Bahramy
    •  & P. Wahl

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