Surfaces, interfaces and thin films articles from across Nature Portfolio

Ultrafast laser light can create emergent polar orders in specially designed thin-film heterostructures. A single-shot X-ray diffraction study, over a timescale of seven orders of magnitude, has revealed how one such polar supercrystal forms with lattice periodicities of tens of nanometres.

A complex experiment based on atomic force microscopy provides the quantitative energy-level diagram of a single molecule.

Spin-to-charge conversion is the process through with a spin current is converted into charge current. It, along with its inverse effect, represents an essential building block for spintronics devices. Here, Choi et al. demonstrate non-volatile control of spin-to-charge conversion in a ferroelectric and graphene based heterostructure.

Selenium passivates defects in CdSe_xTe_1−x solar cells, improving performance. Bowman et al. used photoluminescence to show that whilst Se reduces grain boundary defects, it increases grain interior defects, possibly limiting efficiency gains.

The ordering and dynamics of protons in nanoscale hydrogen-bond networks are crucial for a wide range of physicochemical, biological and geological phenomena in nature. Here, combining vibrational spectroscopy and Angstrom-scale interface engineering of crystalline ice films, an extensive tuning of strongly correlated proton ordering is demonstrated beyond the thermodynamic constraints of bulk hydrogen bonds.

Chiral topological materials have been predicted to host orbital angular momentum monopoles, which can be useful for orbitronics applications. Now such monopoles have been imaged in chiral materials.

Ultrafast laser light can create emergent polar orders in specially designed thin-film heterostructures. A single-shot X-ray diffraction study, over a timescale of seven orders of magnitude, has revealed how one such polar supercrystal forms with lattice periodicities of tens of nanometres.

A complex experiment based on atomic force microscopy provides the quantitative energy-level diagram of a single molecule.

When many-body correlations in quantum materials control the motion of electrons, new quantum states can emerge. Now, a study demonstrates that doping a van der Waals correlated insulator leads to collective electronic reordering arising due to quantum many-body interactions.

The integration of theory and experiment makes possible tracking the slow evolution of a photodoped Mott insulator to a distinct non-equilibrium metallic phase under the influence of electron-lattice coupling.

The ab initio atomistic thermodynamics approach, coined by Reuter and Scheffler formally in 2001, remains pivotal for understanding and predicting the stable surfaces of thermal catalysts under technical conditions.

An all-electric switch of the persistent electron swirl in a quantum anomalous Hall state enables researchers to flip the electronic chirality of this quantum state.