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.
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Double-sided van der Waals epitaxy across an atomic layer
Nature Materials, Published online: 03 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02131-y
Double-sided van der Waals epitaxy across an ultrathin membrane provides a new method for growing a vertical junction with an atomically sharp interface, enabling the direct detection of selection rules for resonant tunnelling between topological surface states.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Tensile strain and low coordination activate pure copper for hydrogen evolution
Nature Materials, Published online: 03 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02099-1
Copper is typically used as a current collector rather than a catalyst for water electrolysis owing to its weak hydrogen adsorption capability. Now, the electroreduction-driven induction of strong and stable tensile strain in low-coordination copper nanoparticles is shown to increase the copper–hydrogen interaction and, thus, the catalytic activity for hydrogen evolution.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Electroreduction-driven distorted nanotwins activate pure Cu for efficient hydrogen evolution
Nature Materials, Published online: 03 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02098-2
Low-cost Cu catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) can transform industrial water electrolysis, but pure Cu typically exhibits a negligible HER. Here, combining pulsed laser ablation and subsequent electroreduction, Cu nanotwins form that enable the HER at an overpotential of 301 mV, with 125 h of stable operation at a current density of 500 mA cm−2.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Printable molecule-selective core–shell nanoparticles for wearable and implantable sensing
Nature Materials, Published online: 03 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02096-4
Current wearable and implantable biosensors still face challenges to improve sensitivity, stability and scalability. Here the authors report inkjet-printable, mass-producible core–shell nanoparticle-based biosensors to monitor a broad range of biomarkers.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Deciphering lithium penetration through solids
Nature Materials, Published online: 31 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02104-7
Non-invasive imaging reveals the mechanisms of lithium penetration in solid-state batteries, paving the way for safer and more durable energy storage technologies.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Topological linking determines elasticity in limited valence networks
Nature Materials, Published online: 31 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02091-9
Experiments and simulations of DNA nanostar hydrogels reveal that microscopic topology determines macroscale elasticity in amorphous networks.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Dendrite formation in solid-state batteries arising from lithium plating and electrolyte reduction
Nature Materials, Published online: 31 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02094-6
NMR spectroscopy and imaging show that dendrites in a solid-state Li battery are formed from Li plating on the electrode and Li+ reduction at solid electrolyte grain boundaries, with an interlapped stalled growth period.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Asymmetric side-chains work
Nature Materials, Published online: 29 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02102-9
A new series of non-fullerene acceptors with asymmetric branched alkyl chains are developed to achieve more than 20% efficiency organic solar cells.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Dynamic flow control through active matter programming language
Nature Materials, Published online: 29 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02090-w
Light-controlled motor–microtubule systems are used to construct micrometre-scale fluid flows for programmable transport, separation and mixing.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Non-fullerene acceptors with high crystallinity and photoluminescence quantum yield enable >20% efficiency organic solar cells
Nature Materials, Published online: 29 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02087-5
Design strategies for non-fullerene acceptors are important for achieving high-efficiency organic solar cells. Here the authors design asymmetrically branched alkyl chains on the thiophene unit of the L8-BO acceptor to achieve high crystallinity and photoluminescence quantum yield, yielding over 20% efficiency in single-junction organic solar cells.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Publisher Correction: Revitalizing interphase in all-solid-state Li metal batteries by electrophile reduction
Nature Materials, Published online: 27 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-025-02152-7
Publisher Correction: Revitalizing interphase in all-solid-state Li metal batteries by electrophile reduction
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Hot effect and cool control
Nature Materials, Published online: 27 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02101-w
Metastable spin order in a canted antiferromagnet is manipulated using strong picosecond magnetic fields, without parasitic heating.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Correlated spin-wave generation and domain-wall oscillation in a topologically textured magnetic film
Nature Materials, Published online: 27 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02085-7
A laser-free ultrafast Lorentz electron microscope has been developed, integrating a microwave-based electron pulser to achieve high spatiotemporal imaging of spin-wave dynamics in a topologically textured thin-film permalloy.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Cryogenic in-memory computing using magnetic topological insulators
Nature Materials, Published online: 27 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02088-4
Material implementation of machine learning algorithms for advanced computing at cryogenic temperature remains rare. Here, the authors report a cryogenic in-memory computing platform using chiral edge states of magnetic topological insulators.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Probing light chirality and spin in two dimensions
Nature Materials, Published online: 24 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02110-9
By constructing vertical tunnel junctions based on few-layer indium selenide, a chirality-sensitive detection method is developed, enabling the investigation of the interaction between chiral light and spin in the two-dimensional limit.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Boosting B cells in blood-derived organoids
Nature Materials, Published online: 24 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02113-6
Synthetic organoids made by combining white blood cells or tonsil cells with a hydrogel that mimics the immune tissue microenvironment provide a platform for mechanistic analysis of B cell maturation, humoral immunity and modelling of patient-specific responses.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Revealing catalyst restructuring and composition during nitrate electroreduction through correlated operando microscopy and spectroscopy
Nature Materials, Published online: 24 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02084-8
Studies based on correlated operando characterization techniques reveal the coexistence of copper metal, oxide and hydroxide phases during the electrochemical reduction of nitrates to ammonia, providing insights into electrocatalyst evolution during reaction and related catalytic performance.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Interlayer reconstruction phase transition in van der Waals materials
Nature Materials, Published online: 24 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02082-w
Current-driven dynamic atomic rearrangements in layered In2Se3 are visualized. The authors identify an intralayer ‘unzipping’ and interlayer ‘zipping’ phase-transition pathway in which bond formation across the van der Waals gaps drives bond cleavage within covalent layers.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Ionic polarization modulation for wide-bandgap high-<i>κ</i> 2D insulators
Nature Materials, Published online: 23 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02106-5
2D monocrystalline Gd2O5 is synthesized, which exhibits a wide bandgap with a high dielectric constant (κ), attributed to its strong ionic polarization capability. These properties enable MoS2-based transistors to achieve an exceptionally low subthreshold swing and a high on/off current ratio, highlighting the potential of Gd2O5 for advanced transistor applications.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Double-sided van der Waals epitaxy of topological insulators across an atomically thin membrane
Nature Materials, Published online: 22 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-02079-5
Double-sided epitaxy of van der Waals materials through atomic membranes is demonstrated, enabling electrons to resonantly tunnel between aligned topological insulator surfaces with the conservation of energy, momentum and spin helicity.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)