Search

Transition metal oxides are interesting for advancing technology as they can combine ease of synthesis, resilience to defects, and high environmental stability, yet few exhibit semiconducting properties, limiting their engineering potential. Here, the authors transform insulating oxides into semiconductors with ultra-low thermal conductivity by introducing configurational entropy, offering a generalizable approach to designing advanced thermoelectric materials with tailored electronic and thermal properties.

Two-dimensional (2D) crystals offer exciting opportunities to study dislocations, including their migration dynamics. Here, the authors show the local strain field at the dislocation core and dislocation motion leading to grain boundary migration in a monolayer of tungsten disulphide.

By controlling oxygen partial pressure, this study coerces Mn and Fe into divalent states, stabilizing seven new high-entropy rock salt oxides, and introduces oxygen chemical potential as a key design axis for predictive synthesis.

A high-pressure reaction is used to convert benzene molecules to one-dimensional crystalline carbon nanostructures that show diamond-like sp³ bonding. These nanothreads are expected to have strength and stiffness greater than carbon nanotubes.

Non-reciprocal charge transport has potential for applications but is usually weak. Here the authors report a room-temperature divergent non-reciprocal Hall effect in devices made of Pt deposited on Si substrates.

Here, the authors observe the lateral confinement of excitons in triangular MoSe₂ quantum dots inside a continuous matrix of monolayer WSe₂. They measure size-dependent exciton confinement in the quantum dots with low-temperature exciton blue shift, and further observe single-photon emission from the smallest dots.

Manipulating the electronic properties of topological semimetals is a central goal of modern condensed matter physics research. Here, the authors demonstrate how a high-entropy engineering approach allows for the tuning of the crystal structure and the electronic states in a Dirac semimetal.

Surface chemistry controls the location of WSe₂ nucleation on a stepped sapphire substrate. Preferential nucleation at either the top or bottom step edge can be used to minimize mirror twin domains and produce unidirectional WSe₂ monolayers.

Precise valence state control to avoid performance deterioration in transition metal oxide films has proved challenging. Here, the authors establish a combinatorial approach to create a valence state library of VO₂, allowing for the growth of wafer size VO₂thin films.

Competing phases in layered complex oxides are believed to be relevant for emergent phenomena, which still await to be witnessed. Here, Stone et al. report direct atomic-scale imaging of a multitude of polar phases in Ruddlesden-Popper oxide thin films, exhibiting diverse phenomena in a single structure.

The nonlinear Hall effect (NLHE) results in a second-harmonic transverse voltage in response to alternating longitudinal current in zero magnetic field and has so far only been observed at low temperatures in bulk materials. Here, the authors observe bulk NLHE at room temperature in the Dirac material BaMnSb₂, which will provide a large photocurrent for applications in THz detection.

The competition between the polar and nonpolar phase in the prototypical hybrid improper ferroelectric crystal Ca₃Mn₂O₇ leads to exotic properties. Here, the authors directly imaged the crystal at atomic resolution to understand its nanostructure and discovered the double bilayer polar nanoregion.

Using molecular-beam epitaxy, we synthesize heterostructures of topological insulator Bi₂Se₃ and the Ising superconductor monolayer NbSe₂. By changing the Bi₂Se₃ thickness, they demonstrate a crossover from Ising- to Rashba-type superconducting pairing.

Band topology of Weyl semimetals is usually predetermined by material parameters and can hardly be manipulated, and their transport properties appear at low temperature. Here, the authors modify the topology via a weak magnetic field and observe a giant anomalous Hall effect at room temperature.