Browse Articles

Altermagnets recently emerged as a new class of magnetic materials, arising from specific spin crystal symmetries. This paper studies a layered triangular lattice altermagnet, cobalt-intercalated NbSe2, using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy.

This Review explores recent advances in MXene-based stimuli-responsive materials that respond to light, heat, mechanical deformation, chemical environment, magnetic fields, and biological cues. Opportunities for translating these intelligent materials into practical technologies by exploiting their multimodal responsiveness is also discussed

This study applies magnetic fields in selected in-plane directions to disentangle the mechanisms underlying the anomalous Hall effect in a representative noncollinear antiferromagnet.

Plastic crystals like neopentyl glycol show strong barocaloric effects but struggle with suitable operating temperatures and low-pressure performance. Here, the authors improved this by blending neopentyl glycol with pentaglycerine and adding 2% pentaerythritol for tunable, reversible phase transitions.

This Review explores the role of fundamental physical properties, such as size, charge, elasticity, curvature, fluidity, and asymmetry, on optimizing lipid-based drug delivery systems. Knowledge gaps and guidance for the future development of lipid-based nanocarriers are also discussed.

The creation and control of two-dimensional superconductivity in clean systems are crucial for investigating quantum phase transitions and emergent phenomena. Here, the authors achieve robust 2D superconductivity on a bulk organic Mott insulator using a photochromic spiropyran derivative, enabling light-driven carrier injection and access to exotic quantum critical phenomena via a versatile, non-invasive platform to manipulate 2D states on clean bulk crystals.

This papers finds that gold nanostructures can act as universal energy donors to activate otherwise inactive gold-based catalysts using light. Introducing a molecular mediator enables localized energy within the nanoparticles to be passed along through a two-step mechanism, creating a reactive excited state in the gold complex.

Magnetic nodal-line semimetals, with their unique gapless crossings, hold promise for advancing spintronics and information technologies, yet remain scarce. Here, the authors identify ferromagnetic hexagonal close-packed cobalt as a prototypical system for exploring nodal-line fermiology at room temperature, revealing its complex nodal structures and highly tunable spin textures.

This study investigates the mechanisms underlying the operation of graphene-based potassium ion-filled-channel transistors by ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. Graphene electrons are found to enable long-range correlation of confined ions, which provides a basis for the sensitive response of transistors to the channel ion density.

Water interactions with cerium dioxide surfaces are central to hydrogen production and catalytic redox reactions. Here, atomic force microscopy with oxygen-terminated probes and first principles calculations provide detailed mechanistic insight of the interactions at play.

Stress-induced amorphization has been observed in some systems as a plasticity mechanism. Here, simulations and microscopy reveal that stress-induced amorphization in forsterite exhibits the features of phase transformation plasticity.

The factors that govern hydrogel-dependent bacterial growth are complex. Here, bacteria proliferation in two agarose hydrogels is investigated for 120 different growth conditions, finding that growth decreased with increasing hydrogel stiffness and with water loss.

The use platinum as a catalyst in proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) has not been widely explored. Here, platinum nanoparticles on a microporous-layer-coated gas diffusion layer are investigated for PEMWE, achieving high mass activity and stability.

This paper reports the design and spinning of intrinsically red-colored artificial silk fibers. A mini-spidroin variant is engineered as a fusion with the red fluorescent protein mCherry, expressed at high yields in E. coli fed-batch fermentations.

Phase transitions between the 2H and 1T’ phases in monolayer MoTe2 show promise for semiconductor applications, yet the atomistic pathways for nucleation and growth remain unclear. This paper investigates these kinetic mechanisms using atomistic simulations based on a machine learning interatomic potential trained on SCAN-DFT data.

Aluminum metal-matrix composites are attractive for various loading-bearing applications. Here, friction extrusion promotes the formation of hierarchical architectures in a ceramic particle/metal-matrix composite, achieving high strength and ductility.

The interplay between Kondo screening and magnetic order is pivotal in understanding strongly correlated systems, yet isolating the relevant mechanisms remains challenging due to complex electronic structures. Here, the authors use a Ni-based spin-(1/2,1) Kondo necklace model to demonstrate that Kondo coupling to spin-1 and higher can stabilize antiferromagnetic order.

Ordered corundum oxides offer promising alternatives to traditional perovskites in functional oxide thin films. Here, the authors utilize layer-by-layer growth to fabricate CrVO3 superlattice thin films, achieving atomic-scale precision and stabilizing the ilmenite phase, potentially expanding the range of customizable rhombohedral oxides with unique properties.

This study uses an X-ray free-electron laser to study transient highly strained structural states in individual palladium nanocrystals, which precede their uniform thermal expansion.

Carbonation of cement is a promising approach for carbon dioxide sequestration. This study explores the effect of heat, moisture, chemical reactions, and mechanical damage on carbonation via time-resolved neutron and X-ray tomography.