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Rhombohedral-stacked structures formed by 2D semiconductors are characterized by emerging physical properties, but their bottom-up growth remains challenging. Here, the authors report a chemical vapour deposition method to grow cm-scale rhombohedral-stacked WS₂/MoS₂ crystals with ferroelectric properties.

Isothermal dissolution–diffusion–precipitation of carbon drives continuous epitaxial growth of single-crystal multilayer graphene.

Rhombohedral-stacked (R-stacked) transition metal dichalcogenide bilayers exhibit remarkable properties, but their large-area epitaxial growth remains challenging. Here, the authors report the remote epitaxy of centimetre-scale single-crystal R-stacked WS₂ bilayer films on sapphire substrates.

One-dimensional materials such as carbon nanotubes have many applications, but not all of their properties can be described in the same way as for conventional media. Here, the authors devise a method to measure the complex optical susceptibility in a 1D nanomaterial and demonstrate it for carbon nanotubes.

Two-dimensional (2D) bismuth oxyselenide crystals with suitable electronic band-gap and ultrahigh carrier mobility enable near-infrared photodetection. Here, the authors report an infrared photodetector based on 2D-bismuth oxyselenide with high responsivity, ultrafast photoresponse of ~ 1 ps at room temperature and a detectable frequency limit of up to 500 GHz.

Recent studies have reported the growth of 2D non-centrosymmetric single crystals on substrates with surface steps, but the mechanisms are still unclear. Here, the authors demonstrate a method to grow unidirectionally aligned transition metal dichalcogenide grains on various types of substrates, showing the importance of the simultaneous formation of grain nuclei and substrate steps.

Artificial cilia array devices are developed for sound frequency decoding and executing tasks such as drug release.

The growth of monolayer hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) on insulating substrates could promote high-end applications of 2D (opto-)electronic devices, but remains difficult to achieve. Here, the authors report a stamp-like growth-transfer technique to produce inch-sized single-crystal hBN and graphene monolayers on various insulating substrates.

Identifying the crystallographic orientations of 2D materials is important, but methods to do so are typically destructive. Here, the authors show that the orientational dependency of self-assembled nanoribbons of oleamide molecules can be used to non-invasively probe the lattice orientations of various 2D substrates.

Ion–ion interactions are crucial to the functioning of biological and artificial ion channels. Here the authors reveal that hydrated alkali metal ions can form one-dimensional closely packed chain structures at charged surfaces to facilitate ion transport.

Ultrafast electron sources are essential for time-resolved electron microscopy techniques, but they usually suffer from limited stability and short lifetimes. Here, the authors report the fabrication of ultrafast hot-electron sources consisting of graphene films integrated on a single-mode optical fibre, showing enhanced stability and longevity.

A mechanical exfoliation method for producing freestanding metal oxide ultrathin flakes is reported. The flakes can be transferred and integrated with 2D materials, providing a platform to investigate the fundamental properties of ultrathin metal oxides.

The authors report a wet-chemistry-based method to fabricate amorphous, transferable high-k copper calcium titanate thin films as dielectrics for two-dimensional electronic devices.

Sliding ferroelectricity with finite conductance can yield ferroelectric hysteresis with concomitant Coulomb screening in monolayer graphene containing van der Waals heterostructures of various compositions.

Functional devices based on sliding ferroelectrics remain elusive. This work demonstrates the rewritable, non-volatile memory devices at room-temperature with two-dimensional sliding ferroelectric rhombohedral-stacked bilayer MoS₂. The device shows overall good performance and can be made flexible.

Varying growth temperatures enables the tuning of the degree of disorder, which is fully described by the absence/presence of medium-range order and temperature-dependent densities of nanocrystallites, and electrical conductivity in amorphous monolayer carbon films.

2D MoS₂ is being intensively investigated as a promising candidate to extend the downscaling of electronic devices. Here, the authors report a buffer-layer-control method for the growth of wafer-scale single-crystalline MoS₂ monolayers on industry-compatible sapphire substrates with competitive optical and electronic properties.

Here, the authors probe the phonon changes across an atomically sharp h-¹⁰BN/h-¹¹BN isotope interface with sub-unit-cell spatial resolution and momentum resolution. The observed phonon delocalization suggests strong electron-phonon coupling at isotopic interface.

The superstate configuration in all-perovskite tandem solar cells is disadvantageous for long-term stability. Here, the authors reverse the processing order and demonstrate substrate configuration to bury oxidizable narrow-bandgap perovskites, and achieve efficiency of 25.3% with long stability.

A van der Waals epitaxial strategy is reported for growing intrinsic quantum dots (QDs) by modulating interfacial couplings on van der Waals surfaces. This method overcomes lattice mismatch constraints and produces versatile III–V and IV–VI QDs with controllable morphologies, broadening near-infrared photoresponse in InSb QDs/MoS₂ by efficient interlayer charge transfer.

Angle tunability in twisted bilayer graphene is crucial in promoting its applications of twistronics. Here an angle replication strategy is developed to obtain centimetre-scale bilayer graphene with arbitrary twist angles.

Photodetectors that offer broadband imaging from ultraviolet to mid-infrared can be created by using a silicon depletion well for charge integration, single-layer graphene for non-destructive direct readout and multilayer graphene for infrared photocharge injection.

 Centimetre-sized single-crystal rhombohedral boron nitride layers are achieved through bevel-edge epitaxy, and the resulting material exhibits robust, homogeneous and switchable ferroelectricity with a high Curie temperature.

Multiwalled boron nitride nanotubes, featuring coherently stacked structures with monochirality, homo-handedness and unipolarity among the component tubes, show a large nonlinear chiroptical response.

Monochromatic electron energy-loss spectroscopy enables the observation of highly confined and ultraslow hyperbolic phonon polaritons in suspended monolayer hexagonal boron nitride, expanding the potential of van der Waals materials for nanophotonic applications.

The article introduces a new method for nanoscale octave-spanning coherent light generation via phase-matching-free down-conversion, offering high-efficiency and applications in metrology, spectroscopy, and telecommunications.

While the role of PbTiO₃ in PbTiO₃/SrTiO₃ superlattices has been widely studied, little attention is paid to possible polar topologies in SrTiO₃. Here, the authors create atomic-scale vortex–antivortex pairs in the superlattices, expanding the understanding of topological structures.

Atomically thick anticorrosion coatings on Cu are desired for future applications, but still at its infancy. Here, the authors report a Janus-doping mechanism in bilayer graphene on Cu substrate that results in an enhanced anticorrosion performance.

Designing an efficient activation function for optical neural networks remains a challenge. Here, the authors demonstrate a modulator-detector-in-one graphene/silicon heterojunction ring resonators enabling on-chip reconfigurable activation function devices with phase activation capability for optical neural networks.

Hybrid perovskites are highly promising for photovoltaic applications, but they are prone to decomposition. Here, the authors probe the stability of CH₃NH₃PbI₃ films in a transmission electron microscope, defining the threshold conditions to avoid damage under the electron beam, and describing a decomposition pathway.

The knowledge of atomic structure and structural instability of hybrid perovskites is crucial to understand their photoelectric properties and failure mechanism. Here, the authors utilise low-dose TEM imaging technique to investigate the atomic structure and decomposition pathway of MAPbI₃ at the atomic scale.

A key strategy for meeting China’s 2060 carbon neutrality goal and the global 1.5 °C climate goal is to rapidly shift away from unabated coal use. Here, the authors detail how to structure a high-ambition, plant-by-plant coal phaseout in China while balancing multiple national needs.

Controlling topological polar vortices promises to open up new applications for ferroelectric materials. Here, the authors proposed a method to mechanically manipulate polar vortices and monitored the transition between vortex and ferroelectric phase by in-situ scanning transmission electron microscopy.

A high-throughput optical imaging and spectroscopy technique has now been developed that characterizes the chirality and electronic structure of individual single-walled carbon nanotubes either on their growth substrate or in functional devices.

Strong-field photoemission is the emission of electrons driven by a strong electric field of light. Here the authors demonstrate a highly non-linear strong-field photoemission, approaching the 40th power-law scaling, from carbon nanotubes, yielding a photoemission current with up to 100% carrier-envelope phase modulation depth.

Interfacial ferroelectricity may emerge in moiré superlattices. Here, the authors find that the polarized charge is much larger than the capacity of the moiré miniband and the associated anomalous screening exists outside the band.

A graphene origami–kirigami technique offers an approach for growing intertwined graphene spirals with fixed twist angles, enabling the chirality of one-dimensional wrinkles to be converted into the twist angle of vertically stacked two-dimensional layers.

Large strain gradient is crucial for flexoelectricity. Here, the authors reveal the generality and tunability of large strain gradients at grain boundaries in oxides, explaining the possible effects on the electrical activities of ceramics.

Four-dimensional electron energy-loss spectroscopy measurements of the vibrational spectra and the phonon dispersion at a heterointerface show localized modes that are predicted to affect the thermal conductance and electron mobility.

Large-area single-crystal high-index copper and nickel foils with several types of facet are fabricated using mild pre-oxidation of the metal foil surface followed by annealing in a reducing atmosphere.

Understanding ferroelectricity at reduced dimensions will be important for future sub-nanoscale devices based on ferroelectrics. Using high resolution electron microscopy; Gaoet al., observe the existence of a measurable polarization at a thickness of just 1.5-unit cells

The majority of polar structures emerging naturally in ferroelectrics are topologically trivial. Here, the authors demonstrate reconstruction of topologically trivial strip-like domain architecture into arrays of polar vortex in (PbTiO₃)₁₀/(SrTiO₃)₁₀ superlattice.

Active species such as hydrogen and oxygen are commonly introduced into reactors to control the growth of two-dimensional materials. Now, the presence of fluorine—released by the decomposition of a metal fluoride sheet—has also been shown to modulate the growth kinetics of graphene, h-BN and WS₂.

It remains unclear how microbes and plants contribute to soil organic carbon (SOC) accrual. Here, using biomarkers, the authors show that microbial necromass and plant-derived lignin components have divergent accumulation mechanisms and that microbial necromass plays a key role in SOC accumulation.