Search

The authors leverage experimental and phylogenetic data to propose that anammox bacteria during the Archaean period could have harvested photoholes from cyanobacterial mats for use as an electron acceptor prior to the availability of nitrite.

Titanosilicates in combination with H₂O₂ catalyse the ammoxidation of cyclohexanone to cyclohexanone oxime, a key Nylon precursor. Integrating a step for the in situ synthesis of H₂O₂ can lead to important efficiency gains but remains challenging. Here the authors report low-loaded subnanometric Pd clusters on titanium mordenite as an efficient catalyst for this transformation.

All-solid-state batteries face significant performance challenges with conventional anodes under high currents. Here, the authors design an In₀.₃₈Sn₀.₃₃Bi₀.₂₉ alloy anode that forms a robust mixed ionic–electronic network, enabling high-rate capability and durable solid-state cells.

O3-type sodium anion-redox cathodes show promise but are hard to synthesize due to unclear mechanisms. Here, authors elucidate the role of oxygen conditions, enabling O3-Na[Li_1/3Mn_2/3]O₂ synthesis and developing Ti-substituted with capacities >190 mAh·g^-1.

Practical implementation of all-perovskite tandem solar cells faces challenges due to the self-reinforcing photothermal-mechanical degradation mechanism. Here, authors employ a polyamine ligand to establish I-Sn-N coordination for stabilizing lattice framework, achieving device efficiency of 29.6%.

Body-centred cubic metals rarely show twinning during deformation. Here, the authors use high resolution transmission electron microscopy to show tungsten, a body-centred cubic metal, spontaneously undergoes detwinning when unloaded.

Single-phase high-entropy alloys, such as CrMnFeCoNi, display excellent ductility and fracture toughness. Here, the authors use in situ mechanical loading in an aberration-corrected transmission electron microscope to probe the atomistic to micro-scale mechanisms underlying these properties.

Wafer-scale two-dimensional transition metal selenides, with high structural quality and environmental stability, can be obtained by two-step vapour deposition in oxygen-free conditions. The grown films maintain robust superconductivity even after harsh treatments.

Rechargeable zinc–air batteries are a sustainable energy storage system, but their performance is not yet competitive. Now a mesoporous single-atom catalyst steers the sluggish four-electron oxygen reduction reaction pathway to a faster two-electron process and enables highly reversible zinc–air batteries.

The efficiency of narrow bandgap subcells is hindered by structural instability and strain accumulation. The authors introduce a rigid sulfonate molecule that suppresses light-induced lattice distortions, enabling certified 29.2% efficiency in all-perovskite tandem solar cells.

Studying the nature of actinide-actinide bonds is important for understanding the electronic structure of the 5f elements, but the synthesis of these chemical bonds remains extremely challenging. Here, the authors report a strong covalent Th-Th bond formed between two rarely accessible Th³⁺ ions, stabilized inside a fullerene cage.

The origin of the degradation of nanodevices under electrical pulses still remains unknown. Here, Li et al. reveal the mechanism of direct electron-dislocation interaction by decoupling the electron wind force using in situ electropulsing, providing atomistic insight into the electroplasticity.

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.

Sublattice amorphization is revealed as the deformation mechanism of Ag₂Te_1–xS_x (0.3 ≤ x ≤ 0.6), based on which an iterative crystalline–amorphous transition strategy is proposed to enable these bulk inorganic semiconductors with metal-like processability.

Grain boundary can change its structure upon deformation. Here, the authors show that during this process, grain boundary mobility can be tuned dynamically via a self-stimulated twinning process.

Crystal defects critically influence surface chemical reactions in nanomaterials, yet the basic mechanisms at play are still elusive. Here, the authors show the atomic-scale dynamics of surface oxidation at coherent planar defects in Ag and Pd, revealing how twins and stacking-faults selectively oxidize metallic nanocrystals.

Wu et al. developed SkySense++, a multi-modal remote sensing foundation model pretrained on 27 million multi-modal images, which achieved robust generalization and few-shot capabilities across several Earth observation tasks and domains, including agriculture and disaster management.

Low-dimensional materials containing defects such as twin boundaries are known to fail well below their theoretical strength due to surface imperfections. Here, Wang et al. observe strengths close to the ideal limit in gold nanowires with angstrom scale twins, where homogeneous dislocation nucleation controls deformation.

Sodium-ion batteries face challenges due to electrode degradation and interphase instability. Here, authors develop a smart gel polymer electrolyte for hard carbon||NaNi_1/3Fe_1/3Mn_1/3O₂ batteries via in situ polymerization of specific monomers in conventional electrolytes.

A navigation and positioning strategy is proposed for the scalable synthesis of a series of heteronuclear dual-atom catalysts via irradiation. It is shown that photo-induced electron accumulation at the M₁ site can attract an M₂ metal cation, forming heteronuclear dimers with high purity.

Solid-state lithium batteries typically utilize heterogeneous composite cathodes with conductive additives, which limit energy density and cycle life. Here the authors present a cathode material that exhibits efficient mixed conduction and near-zero volume change during cycling, thereby improving battery performance.

Designing efficient and stable acidic oxygen evolution catalysts is challenging. Here, the authors construct high-density grain boundaries in V-doped RuO₂ to tune its electronic structure and boost stability, addressing the activity/stability trade-off in proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers.

Mechanical degradation is an undesired behaviour for battery electrode materials such as lithiated silicon. Here, the authors performin situnanomechanical experiments and atomistic modelling to reveal the damage tolerance of electrochemically lithiated silicon.

How to melt and quench the largest subclass of MOFs, metal carboxylate frameworks, into glasses is a major challenge. Here, the authors develop a strategy by grafting the zwitterions onto the carboxylate ligands and incorporating organic acids into the framework channels to realize the glass formation.

Shear-induced grain boundary migration at the atomic level is still not well understood. Here the authors combine in situ shear testing experiments and molecular dynamic simulations to reveal the atomistic mechanism of disconnection-mediated GB migration in different gold nanostructures.

Improving the reversible plastic deformability and damage tolerance of nanosized metals remains challenging. Here, the authors custom-design low angle grain boundaries in metallic bicrystals to achieve controllable plastic reversibility via fully conservative grain boundary migration.

Paracrystalline state is still challenging to reach in alloy systems in a controlled manner. Here, the authors present an atomic-level tailoring route to create paracrystalline Zr-Nb-Hf-Ta-Mo high-entropy alloy through local amorphization induced by atomic-level Pt with negative mixing enthalpy.

Nitrate electroreduction to ammonia can decrease pollutants and produce high-value ammonia. Here, the authors design a Fe/Cu diatomic catalyst on nitrogen-doped graphene, which exhibits high catalytic activities of and selectivity for ammonia.

Carbon materials are promising for perovskite solar cells but suffer from poor interfacial energy level alignment. Now, Zhang et al. show that Ti atomically dispersed in reduced graphene reduces energy losses improving device performance.

Increasing the metal loading of single-atom catalysts (SACs) typically results in aggregation, which can have a detrimental effect on catalytic performance. Now, a nitrogen-doping-assisted atomization approach is reported that transforms metal-sulfide nanoparticles into ultrahigh-density metal–nitrogen–carbon SACs.

Here the authors delineate the dynamic changes in 3D genome and epigenome of differentiating macrophages and during infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. They reveal a role for NF-κB upon infection and identify SNPs in disease-susceptible loci, including rs1873613 that is located in the anchor of a dynamic chromatin loop.

Efficient and stable electrocatalysts for acidic oxygen evolution are essential for proton exchange membrane electrolyzers. Here, the authors report Ru–O–Ir atomic interfaces that enable bridging oxygen-mediated deprotonation pathways, overcoming the activity/stability trade-off in acidic oxygen evolution.

Solid-phase synthesis strategy is promising for fabricating desired complex metal nanoparticles on supports. Here, the authors synthesize CoFe@FeOx core-shell nanoparticles as the separator coatings via precise solid-phase method which effectively regulates polysulfides for lithium/ sodium-sulfur batteries.

Comprehensive epigenomic maps of various rice varieties are still unavailable. Here, the authors report the development of eChIP as a fast and low-input upgrade of regular plant ChIP-seq protocol for epigenome analysis of 20 rice varieties and annotate over 80% of the genome with different epigenome properties for transcriptional regulation.

The development of Li2S-P2S5 glass ceramics is greatly hampered by the low room temperature lithium conductivity. Here, the authors propose a nanocrystallization strategy to fabricate super lithium conductive glass ceramics.

The achievable photocurrent of hematite, α-Fe₂O₃, is typically limited far below its theoretical limit. Here, the authors engineer single Pt atomic sites with surface oxygen vacancies into hematite photoanodes, which leads to enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting.

Supported subnanometric clusters are a much sought-after class of catalyst, but governing the anchoring onto the support and the resulting properties of the clusters remains a challenge. Now the authors show how UTL-type germanosilicate can stabilize ultra-fine Pt clusters, resulting in a superior catalyst for propane dehydrogenation.

Probes that effectively utilize quantum tunneling are sought after for high-resolution study of nanoscale objects. Here the authors present an easily fabricated probe of two nanoelectrodes that enables highly sensitive quantum-tunneling-based sensing of single molecules.

Potassium-ion battery is a promising candidate for post-Li-ion energy storage but the lack of cathode materials hinders practical exploitation. Here the authors investigate defect-free potassium manganese hexacyanoferrate as cathode active material for high energy and long lifespan K-based cells.