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: 14 min 4 sec ago
Stronger together
Nature Materials, Published online: 02 February 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-023-01793-w
Considering responsive materials as transient collective assemblies rather than individual shape-changing objects allows for emergent functionalities that cannot be derived from the properties of single objects but are driven by interactions between them.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Chromogenic identification of breakdown
Nature Materials, Published online: 02 February 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-023-01786-9
Early detection of electrical degradation can be identified by colour change due to the chromogenic response of blended molecules in dielectric polymers.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Mechanism of plastic deformation in metal monochalcogenides
Nature Materials, Published online: 02 February 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-023-01789-6
Metal monochalcogenides — a class of van der Waals layered semiconductors — can exhibit ultrahigh plasticity. Investigation of the deformation mechanism reveals that on mechanical loading, these materials undergo local phase transitions that, coupled with the concurrent generation of a microcrack network, give rise to the ultrahigh plasticity.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Staying in the comfort zone
Nature Materials, Published online: 02 February 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-01801-7
Staying in the comfort zone
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Quantum dots make it big at last
Nature Materials, Published online: 02 February 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-01807-1
The 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry acknowledged work that paved the way to a nanotechnology worthy of the name.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Unlocking Li superionic conductivity in face-centred cubic oxides via face-sharing configurations
Nature Materials, Published online: 02 February 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-01800-8
Oxides with a face-centred cubic anion sublattice are generally not considered as solid-state electrolytes. Li superionic conductivity in face-centred cubic oxides with face-sharing Li configurations have now been created through cation over-stoichiometry in rocksalt-type lattices via excess Li.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Quenched lattice fluctuations in optically driven SrTiO<sub>3</sub>
Nature Materials, Published online: 01 February 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-023-01791-y
Intense light pulses can induce symmetry breaking, as for the generation of ferroelectricity in SrTiO3. Using ultrafast X-ray diffuse scattering at a free-electron laser, nonlinear phonon interactions that occur on such mid-IR excitation are observed, with a theory for the dynamics presented.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Self-assembled soft alloy with Frank–Kasper phases beyond metals
Nature Materials, Published online: 31 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-023-01796-7
Soft building blocks tend to be near spherical, limiting their packing structures to those found in metallic systems. Here the authors report the spontaneous generation of highly deformed mesoatoms using molecular pentagons and observe Frank–Kasper phases not found in metal alloys.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
General room-temperature Suzuki–Miyaura polymerization for organic electronics
Nature Materials, Published online: 29 January 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-023-01794-9
A general process for a room-temperature, homogeneous Suzuki–Miyaura-type polymerization is reported, demonstrating a route for the scalable production of device-quality conjugated polymers.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)