Nature Materials is a multidisciplinary journal aimed at bringing together cutting-edge research across the entire spectrum of materials science and technology. Nature Materials covers all applied and fundamental aspects of the synthesis/processing, structure/composition, properties and performance of materials. Nature Materials provides a forum for the development of a common identity among materials scientists while encouraging researchers to cross established subdisciplinary lines. To achieve this, Nature Materials takes an interdisciplinary, integrated and balanced approach to all areas of materials research while fostering the exchange of ideas between scientists involved in different communities.
Updated: 23 min 24 sec ago
All-electrical perpendicular switching of chiral antiferromagnetic order
Nature Materials, Published online: 29 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02228-4
By introducing an unconventional spin–orbit torque, the authors demonstrate an all-electrical way to bidirectionally switch the perpendicular chiral antiferromagnetic order in Mn3Sn, promoting the application of antiferromagnetic spintronics.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
A neuromorphic mechanosensory skin
Nature Materials, Published online: 28 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02230-w
A bioinspired mechanosensory skin integrating different neuromorphic processing modes enables robots to achieve highly efficient tactile texture discrimination.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
High-colour-purity and efficient organic light-emitting transistors
Nature Materials, Published online: 28 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02221-x
Laterally integrated organic light-emitting transistors with intrinsic optical microcavities provide a general platform for organic electroluminescence with simultaneous high colour purity and efficiency.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
DNA droplets shuffle in the spotlight
Nature Materials, Published online: 28 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02226-6
When exposed to polarized light, DNA condensate droplets with molecular photoswitches undergo life-inspired shape changes and motion.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Ab initio structure solutions from nanocrystalline powder diffraction data via diffusion models
Nature Materials, Published online: 28 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02220-y
A machine learning model that can solve nanocrystalline structures from highly degraded PXRD patterns is presented. It is shown to be successful on simulated crystals as small as 10 Å, and is robust to noisy patterns from real-world experiments.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Bio-inspired artificial mechanoreceptors with built-in synaptic functions for intelligent tactile skin
Nature Materials, Published online: 28 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02204-y
Inspired by human tactile afferent systems, the authors present an artificial tactile sensing device by integrating a tactile-stimulus-receptive triboelectric layer and a reduced graphene oxide channel field-effect transistor.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Warm metalworking for plastic manufacturing in brittle semiconductors
Nature Materials, Published online: 28 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02223-9
The authors show that bulk brittle semiconductors can be plastically manufactured like metals by warm metalworking into free-standing, metre-scale films with decent physical properties.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Intermolecular-force-driven anisotropy breaks the thermoelectric trade-off in n-type conjugated polymers
Nature Materials, Published online: 28 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02207-9
Electronic devices based on conjugated polymers require a preferential molecular orientation to maximize performance. Here a self-induced anisotropy strategy is demonstrated that harnesses intermolecular forces between solvents, dopants and the polymer to orient the film, enabling an enhanced thermoelectric power factor.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Unveiling ferroelectric 3D microstructures
Nature Materials, Published online: 23 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02206-w
Multislice electron ptychography reveals ferroelectric microstructures with sub-ångström lateral resolution and nanometre depth resolution, directly imaging a ferroelectricity generated by anion displacements relative to the Nb sublattice.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Double-network-inspired mechanical metamaterials
Nature Materials, Published online: 23 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02219-5
Inspired by the entangled structure of double-network hydrogels, the authors integrate stiff truss and compliant woven components into metamaterial architectures to realize simultaneous high stiffness and high stretchability.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Electron ptychography reveals a ferroelectricity dominated by anion displacements
Nature Materials, Published online: 23 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02205-x
Limited by challenges in light-atom imaging, microscopic investigations of ferroelectricity have used cation–cation displacements as a proxy for the true cation–anion distortions. Using electron ptychography, oxygen anions can be tracked to observe an otherwise-hidden ferroelectric mechanism in thin-film NaNbO3, which would have appeared antiferroelectric from cations alone.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Tunable fractional Chern insulators in rhombohedral graphene superlattices
Nature Materials, Published online: 22 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02225-7
The authors report their observation of the fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect in rhombohedral hexalayer graphene/hBN moiré superlattice devices.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Synapse-powered vitality
Nature Materials, Published online: 18 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02209-7
A tactile visual synapse is developed combining the functionalities of tactile sensation with real-time visualization of its activity for efficient in situ health monitoring.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Deciphering electrocatalysts with multimodal operando approaches
Nature Materials, Published online: 18 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02224-8
The electrocatalytic processes of a copper catalyst during nitrate electroreduction are unveiled by correlated operando microscopy and spectroscopy.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Bioinstructive scaffolds enhance stem cell engraftment for functional tissue regeneration
Nature Materials, Published online: 17 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02212-y
A decellularized extracellular matrix scaffold containing nanocapsules orchestrates timed growth factor release to promote muscle stem cell proliferation and differentiation and effective muscle regeneration after traumatic injury.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Immune-compatible designs of semiconducting polymers for bioelectronics with suppressed foreign-body response
Nature Materials, Published online: 17 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02213-x
Semiconductor polymers containing selenophene in their backbones and immunomodulatory groups in their side chains enable the fabrication of implantable bioelectronic devices with enhanced immune compatibility and low foreign-body response.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Skyrmion nanodomains in ferroelectric–antiferroelectric solid solutions
Nature Materials, Published online: 15 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02216-8
Polar skyrmions are of interest for nanoelectronics due to their exotic properties. However, so far, these are metastable states requiring a delicate balance of boundary conditions to form in heterostructures. In ferroelectric and antiferroelectric solid solutions, skyrmionic textures are observed to form in both bulk and film.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Locating dislocations in organic crystals
Nature Materials, Published online: 11 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02203-z
The formation of dislocations upon slip–slide events in organic crystals has been revealed by advanced electron microscopy and data-mining techniques.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Shedding light on quantum geometry
Nature Materials, Published online: 10 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02172-3
Measuring the bulk photovoltaic effect in twisted bilayer graphene provides a fascinating way to probe the quantum geometry shaped by interactions.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
A non-fullerene acceptor for perovskites
Nature Materials, Published online: 10 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02189-8
A non-fullerene-based electron-transporting material helps achieve superior efficiency, thermal stability, processability and defect passivation in perovskite solar cells.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)