Nature Materials
A monthly multi-disciplinary journal that brings together cutting-edge research across the entire spectrum of materials science and engineering, including applied and fundamental aspects of the synthesis/processing, structure/composition, properties and performance of materials.
Solid-liquid-gas reaction accelerated by gas molecule tunnelling-like effect
We image the etching of gold nanorods directly at the solid-liquid-gas interface through liquid cell transmission electron microscopy. The local reaction is dramatically accelerated by up to 20 times when the distance between the gas bubbles and the solid (nanorods) is less than 1 nm.
Tomographic measurement of dielectric tensors at optical frequency
We developed dielectric tensor tomography – a method to directly measure and reconstruct the 3D dielectric tensors of anisotropic samples
Mobile excitons discovered in quasi-one-dimensional metal TaSe3
Mobile excitons in metals have been elusive, as screening usually suppresses their formation. Here, the authors demonstrate such mobile bound states in quasi-one-dimensional metallic TaSe₃, taking advantage of its low dimensionality and carrier density.
Achieving adjustable elasticity with non-affine to affine transition
Researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong discovered a topology-correlated affinity transition in both 2D and 3D packing-derived networks. Based on this transition, they reveal the strategies to build multifunctional systems with adjustable elasticity.
Plastics turn into a metal
Researchers from the University of Tokyo have developed two-dimensional hole gas in solution-processed organic semiconductors, where an apparent insulator-metal transition has been experimentally observed for the first time. These results have just been published in Nature Materials.