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A new carbonate phase calcium carbonate hemihydrate was recently discovered and characterized, but exclusively as a synthetic material. Here the authors find that it exists in nature, albeit transiently, on the surface of growing nacre and coral skeletons, and show that 2 amorphous and 2 metastable crystalline nano-minerals form before biominerals settle into their stable crystals.

Samples returned from asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission contain N-rich organics with prebiotic implications. This material probably formed in the earliest stages of the asteroid’s history possibly even before its water ice melted.

Samples returned from asteroid Bennu largely comprise hydrated sheet silicates with sulfides, magnetite and carbonate that indicate alteration by a fluid that evolved from neutral to alkaline, according to a micro- and nanoscale mineralogical study.

Establishing the cause of inhomogeneous broadening would help to produce narrow ensemble localized surface plasmon resonance peaks, favourable for sensing applications. Here, Johns et al. use near field optics for enhancing signal contrast, enabling the measurement of mid-infrared spectra of single nanocrystals.

Nanoparticles are often stabilized by capping ligands but the specific role of such ligands during catalytic processes is often ignored. Now, in situ techniques including spatially resolved infrared nanospectroscopy reveal the ligand-assisted formation of a catalytic microenvironment on the surface of silver nanoparticles with nanoscale precision during CO₂ electroreduction.

Solid-state batteries remain promising but essential insights into electrode-electrolyte interface are required. Here, the authors report in situ infrared nanospectroscopy of the lithium-polymer-electrolyte interface to reveal its intrinsic molecular, structural, and chemical heterogeneities.

The CMS Collaboration reports the study of three simultaneous hard interactions between quarks and gluons in proton–proton collisions. This manifests through the concurrent production of three J/ψ mesons, which consist of a charm-quark–antiquark pair.

Understanding the electromagnetic responses at subwavelength scales is important for achieving tunability. Using a combination of the near-field and far-field spectroscopy, the authors demonstrate a heavy fermion metamaterial with tunable dual-band optical responses by selectively and separately modifying the 4f and 5d band electrons.

Graphene microribbons behave as tunable metamaterials at terahertz frequencies.

Biomineral armour is known in a number of diverse creatures but has not previously been observed in insects. Here, the authors report on the discovery and characterization of high-magnesium calcite armour which overlays the exoskeletons of leaf-cutter ants.

Understanding of electrolyte-electrode interfaces is limited due to the lack of suitable probing techniques. Here, the authors present a vibrational spectroscopy based on graphene gratings, which enables sensitive and interface-specific detection of molecular vibrations at electrolyte-electrode interfaces.

The CMS Collaboration reports evidence for off-shell Higgs boson contributions in the production of Z boson pairs, and measures the width of the Higgs boson, which is inversely related to its lifetime.

Ferroic domain walls are nano-objects that are considered functional elements in future devices. Here, the authors study phonons across ferroelastic domain walls by synchrotron-based near-field infrared nano-spectroscopy and relate these changes to the order parameter which helps to understand domain wall dynamics.

The most up-to-date combination of results on the properties of the Higgs boson is reported, which indicate that its properties are consistent with the standard model predictions, within the precision achieved to date.

Electrons in graphene have a pseudospin, but controlling this degree of freedom is challenging. Evidence now suggests that the moiré superlattices arising in two-dimensional heterostructures can be used to electrically manipulate pseudospins.

Rocks and dust from the asteroid Bennu contain some of the molecular building blocks of life on Earth, such as amino acids and nucleobases. They also carry ammonia that formed billions of years ago in cold, distant regions of our Solar System.

Quantifying the amount of water in meteorites remains challenging, with minerals the key to understanding water contents. Here, Adcocket al. perform shock experiments on H⁺-bearing whitlockite demonstrating that it may transform into anhydrous merrillite, which is commonly found in Martian meteorites.

Transition metal perovskite oxide membranes are promising platforms for infrared polaritonics. Here, the authors experimentally demonstrate highly confined epsilon-near-zero modes and propagating surface phonon polaritons in high-quality SrTiO₃ membranes with deep subwavelength thickness.

Systems that help to enable nanophotonics in the terahertz region are in demand for developing technologies. The authors introduce and study the photonic properties of tin oxide nanobelts as such a platform, supporting phonon polaritons in the far-IR range.

Silk protein fibres are exceptionally strong, owing to their high β-sheet nanocrystal content. Here, the authors use an electron beam to guide silk β-sheet crystals through structural transitions, and visualize the changes by infrared near-field optics, achieving close to molecular-level resolution.

The chemical conversion of N-heterocyclic carbene molecules attached to catalytic particles is monitored at high spatial resolution using synchrotron-radiation-based infrared nanospectroscopy.

X-ray spectroscopy is a tool used for the investigation of aqueous solutions but the strong absorption of water means that very thin liquid sheets are needed for accurate analysis. Here the authors produce free-flowing liquid sheets 2 orders of magnitude thinner than sheets obtained with existing techniques.

The bandgap of bilayer graphene can be tuned with an electric field and topological valley polarized modes have been predicted to exist at its domain boundaries; here, near-field infrared imaging and low-temperature transport measurements reveal such modes in gapped bilayer graphene.

Exciton condensation may emerge at room temperature in topological materials with strong Coulomb interactions and vanishing electron effective mass. Here, Hou et al. report the formation of excitons in Bi_2-xSb_xSe₃ nanoribbons, which can transport over hundreds of micrometres before recombination up to 40 K, further implying exciton condensation.

Synchrotron-based Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectro-microtomography is a nondestructive, label-free imaging technique that allows chemical fingerprinting of intact, three-dimensional biological samples.

Holman et al. develop a grid-less autonomous adaptive sampling method to explore high-dimensional spatiochemical experimental systems. Their method greatly decreases image acquisition time while improving spatial resolution, and when implemented with FTIR, it outperforms existing standard grid sampling approaches. They further show its utility for a complex biological sample, C. elegans.