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This work advances multimodal structural refinements to generate 3D polarization maps for relaxor ferroelectrics, revealing continuous textures with vortex meron features tied to chemical disorder and deepening understanding of relaxor phenomena.

Here authors demonstrate a strategy of enhancing the porosity of MOF glasses through topological engineering. Unlike the production of inorganic porous glasses by leaching, the pore structures in MOF glasses were controlled by using a highly porous topology of the crystalline precursor.

The formation of composite materials has been widely exploited to alter the chemical and physical properties of their components. Here the authors form metal–organic framework (MOF) crystal–glass composites in which a MOF glass matrix stabilises the open pore structure of MIL-53, leading to enhanced CO₂ adsorption.

Structural disorder in materials is challenging to characterise. Here, the authors use multivariate analysis of atomic pair distribution functions to study structural collapse and melting of metal–organic frameworks, revealing powerful mechanistic and kinetic insight.

A series of dicyanamide-based hybrid organic–inorganic perovskite structures has been shown to melt at temperatures below 300 °C. On melt-quenching, they form glasses that possess coordination bonding and show very low thermal conductivities and moderate electrical conductivities as well as polymer-like thermomechanical properties.

The structures of amorphous MOFs are challenging to characterise. Here the authors use electron microscopy and pair distribution function methods, coupled with a polymerisation-based algorithm to determine the atomic structure of Fe-BTC, demonstrating the power of this computational approach.

Responsiveness in metal-organic frameworks involving amorphous phases remains poorly understood. Here, the authors demonstrate MOFs that reversibly switch between well-defined crystalline and structurally degenerate amorphous states mediated by competing intra-framework forces.

The charging of Fe and Mn oxide anodes in lithium-ion batteries are believed to form rocksalt phases via reconstructive conversion reactions. Here, the authors show that M_xO_y (M = Fe, Mn) transform into non-native body-centred cubic FeO and zincblende MnO via topotactic displacement-like pathways.

The One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative provides a robust phylogenomic framework for examining green plant evolution that comprises the transcriptomes and genomes of diverse species of green plants.

Metal–organic framework glasses have emerged as a new family of melt-quenched glass, but have yet to display the accessible porosity of their crystalline counterparts. Here, Bennett and colleagues report that glasses derived from ZIF-76 parent materials possess 4 – 8 Å pores and exhibit reversible gas adsorption.

Correlated defects are known to be closely linked to material properties throughout condensed matter research. Here, the authors examine the defects in a canonical metal–organic framework with an array of crystallographic and computational techniques and suggest they are correlated rather than random.

Irreversible bond formation in covalent organic frameworks leads to amorphous materials. Here, the authors show that crystalline and ultra-stable covalent amide frameworks can be accessed by devitrification of amorphous polyamide networks.

The recently introduced glass and liquid states of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) provide opportunities to design and explore new properties for this class of material. Here, the authors show that a MOF liquid can be blended with another MOF component to produce domain-structured MOF glasses with single, tailorable glass transitions.

Hydroxycarbonate minerals such as zincian malachite and aurichalcite are well known precursors to catalysts for methanol-synthesis and low-temperature water–gas shift reactions; here, a supercritical antisolvent method is used to prepare highly stable georgeite—a hydroxycarbonate mineral that has hitherto been ignored because of its rarity, but which is found to be a superior catalyst precursor.

In an inter-laboratory study, the authors compare the accuracy and performance of three optical density calibration protocols (colloidal silica, serial dilution of silica microspheres, and colony-forming unit (CFU) assay). They demonstrate that serial dilution of silica microspheres is the best of these tested protocols, allowing precise and robust calibration that is easily assessed for quality control and can also evaluate the effective linear range of an instrument.