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An interface nanostructuring design via plasma assisted ball milling (PABM) was proposed to fabricate disordered multilayer graphene (DMGr)/Cu composites that are strong yet plastic, achieving a compressive strength of 1.56 GPa and plastic strain of exceeding 0.6.

Strengthening of metals by grain refinement is limited by the inverse Hall-Petch effect. Here, the authors show nanograined metals can be strengthened by exhausting lattice dislocations via triggering of phase transformation at grain boundaries, instead of further grain refinement.

Prussian blue analogues are promising for aqueous batteries but interstitial water effects remain underexplored. Here, authors develop a cation-self-shielding strategy with dihydroxyacetone to stabilize water-rich Prussian blue analogues for application in K-ion batteries.

The authors present an approach to simultaneously map local magnetization, strain, atomic structure at nanoscale. It provides direct visualization of strainmagnetic coupling in ferromagnetic materials, opening avenues for studying nanomagnetism.

Fe₃₄Co₂₉Ni₂₉Al₃Ta₃Si₂ high entropy alloy fibers with low coercivity and large plasticity are prepared. The fibers have a tensile strength of 674 MPa at 23% elongation, a coercivity of 8.1 Oe and a high Curie temperature of 770 K.

Chiral metals often suffer from limitations such as reduced selectivity caused by kink coalescence and atomic roughness. Here, the authors present chiral medium-entropy ceramics and overcome the trade-off between stability and enantioselectivity.

High-strength nanocrystalline materials come at the expense of tensile ductility, thermal stability, and electrical conductivity. Here the authors report a nanodispersion-in-nanograins strategy where ultra-nano-carbon was used to concurrently achieve above four mutually exclusive properties.

Body-centered cubic refractory metals are known to exhibit excellent high-temperature strength, but often suffer from brittle fracture. Here, the authors produce a bulk pure Mo with stable fine-grain structure after powder metallurgy, Y-type hot rolling and ultra-high temperature annealing (1000~1700 °C) that exhibits room temperature superplasticity.

This work shows that by designing appropriate alloying elements in a body-centred-cubic high-entropy alloy, local chemical order and lattice distortion can be tuned, which influences the evolution of planar-slip bands, realizing pure-metal-like tensile ductility at gigapascal yield strength.

Hydroxide exchange membrane fuel cells operating in alkaline electrolyte are more cost-effective than their proton exchange membrane counterparts, but their performance is still considerably lower. Now, a Ni–Mo–Nb metallic glass is put forward as a hydrogen oxidation reaction catalyst with high activity and stability in alkaline electrolyte.

An anomalous exothermal calorimetric peak far below crystallization temperatures in prototypical Pd-Ni-P glasses has been recognized for four decades. Here authors use neutron and high-energy X-ray diffraction to find evidence for a polyamorphous phase transition where medium-range order undergoes large changes while short-range order changes little.

Several two-dimensional materials have been synthesized to date, yet elemental materials, consisting of individual atomic species, are still scarce. Here, the authors synthesize few-layer, monocrystalline polygons of antimonene via van der Waals epitaxy growth.

A nanocrystalline metallic alloy with ultrahigh tensile strength and good ductility is achieved by introducing compositional undulation in a highly concentrated solid solution.

Additively manufactured Ti alloys exhibit spatially dependent microstructures and mechanical properties owing to the intrinsic thermal cycling. Here the authors develop new Ti alloys with uniform mechanical properties through a rational alloy design.

On-surface dehydrogenative bond formation between sp³-hybridized carbon atoms usually requires high temperatures. Now, it has been shown that the higher homologue, silicon, can undergo dehydrogenative polymerization at room temperature on metal surfaces. This process creates well-ordered structures on Au(111) and Cu(111), with different stereoselectivity depending on the metal.

The field of battery chemistry must embrace abundant elements such as Mn for improved sustainability. Here the authors engineer the orientation of Mn 3d orbitals, resulting in excellent performance in LiMnO₂ cathodes.

Anionic redox reactions are gaining interest as a means to optimize capacities of alkaline ion batteries. Here, the authors investigate various charge compensation mechanisms and report S–S dimerization and the formation of electron holes on sulfur in a model sulfide cathode.

Layered Na_xMnO₂ cathode suffers from structural instability and sluggish kinetics. Here the authors show a method to yield monoclinic NaMn_2−y−δ(OH)_2y, a new polymorph of Na-birnessite with maximum Na occupancy and enlarged interlayer spacing, enabling outstanding cyclability and rate performance.

High entropy alloys usually emphasize equiatomic compositions, which restrict the compositions available to induce strengthening via precipitation. Here the authors use spinodal decomposition in a five-element alloy to obtain high content nanophases and the highest tensile strength reported to date.

Solution treatment and quenching can strengthen magnesium-lithium-aluminium alloys, but this strength decreases with ageing. Here, the authors show this is due to semi-coherent nanoparticle precipitation followed by coarsening, and control the lattice mismatch to stabilise the microstructure.

A magnesium-based alloy with large lithium content demonstrates high specific strength in combination with corrosion resistance, associated with the formation of a lithium carbonate surface film that protects the alloy from its environment.

Non-crystalline, amorphous materials are commonly known to exhibit a characteristic local ordering. Here, the authors report a new material prepared by pulsed electrodeposition showing the co-existence of liquid and solid-like amorphous phases, which gives rise to enhanced thermal stability and plasticity.

An intermediate cube phase with a medium-range order structure is identified in Pd-Ni-P metallic glass, which links the amorphous and crystalline phases.

The incorporation of structural defects, in particular of interfaces, into crystalline lattices results in enhanced material properties. In this Review, different types of boundaries and interfaces are discussed, including high- and low-angle grain boundaries, twin boundaries, nanotwinned and nanolaminated structures, and gradient nanostructures.

Mesoporous low-temperature LiCoO₂ nanowire arrays can be directly prepared by a two-step hydrothermal method and they can be easily converted into chain-like high-temperature LiCoO₂ nanowire arrays through further calcination. The layered LiCoO₂ nanowire arrays exhibit both high gravimetric capacity and areal capacity, while maintaining good cycling stability and rate capability, make them promising for application in microbatteries.

A vesicant-assisted gas-foaming strategy has been reported to achieve 3D h-BN white graphene (WG) foams without any catalysts or templates. This technique could provide large-scale, high-yield and ultralight 3D WG foams with a very low density of 2.1 mg cm⁻³. The WG foams present hierarchical pores and ultrathin walls with single or several atomic layers. The WG foams present superhigh adsorption properties for organic solvents and oils with an adsorption capacity of up to 70–190 times its own weight for organic pollutants and oils. This study promotes a new design strategy to create 3D WG foams for high-performance pollutant removal applications in water treatment.