Research articles

Polariton probing of high-frequency acoustic pulses enables the detection of coherent acoustic phonons, allowing the authors to monitor atomic motions in the 100 attometre range relative to their lattice position.

Hot carrier transport in organic systems has remained elusive due to rapid energy relaxation and limited transport properties. Here highly mobile hot carriers and their relaxation dynamics are reported in a crystalline two-dimensional conjugated coordination polymer, revealing two distinct transport regimes.

Epithelial cell–cell contact resistance to mechanical stress is defined by a regulated viscous dissipation through the cytoskeleton, where the toughness of the cell junction is set by the balance between cortical tension and cell shape recovery time.

The orbital-to-spin moments ratio for individual atomic planes of an iron crystal is studied, revealing local variations at subatomic scales.

Ultrasound-induced differentiation of neural stem cells into neurons using piezoelectric nanostickers achieves injury repair and effective restoration of physiological functions of rats with traumatic brain injury.

A class of moiré quasiperiodic crystals with unexpected electronic properties is presented, exhibiting flat bands and correlation-induced gaps that signal the emergence of correlated quantum states.

By introducing an unconventional spin–orbit torque, the authors demonstrate an all-electrical way to bidirectionally switch the perpendicular chiral antiferromagnetic order in Mn₃Sn, promoting the application of antiferromagnetic spintronics.

A machine learning model that can solve nanocrystalline structures from highly degraded PXRD patterns is presented. It is shown to be successful on simulated crystals as small as 10 Å, and is robust to noisy patterns from real-world experiments.

Inspired by human tactile afferent systems, the authors present an artificial tactile sensing device by integrating a tactile-stimulus-receptive triboelectric layer and a reduced graphene oxide channel field-effect transistor.

The authors show that bulk brittle semiconductors can be plastically manufactured like metals by warm metalworking into free-standing, metre-scale films with decent physical properties.

Electronic devices based on conjugated polymers require a preferential molecular orientation to maximize performance. Here a self-induced anisotropy strategy is demonstrated that harnesses intermolecular forces between solvents, dopants and the polymer to orient the film, enabling an enhanced thermoelectric power factor.

Inspired by the entangled structure of double-network hydrogels, the authors integrate stiff truss and compliant woven components into metamaterial architectures to realize simultaneous high stiffness and high stretchability.

Limited by challenges in light-atom imaging, microscopic investigations of ferroelectricity have used cation–cation displacements as a proxy for the true cation–anion distortions. Using electron ptychography, oxygen anions can be tracked to observe an otherwise-hidden ferroelectric mechanism in thin-film NaNbO₃, which would have appeared antiferroelectric from cations alone.

The authors report their observation of the fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect in rhombohedral hexalayer graphene/hBN moiré superlattice devices.

A decellularized extracellular matrix scaffold containing nanocapsules orchestrates timed growth factor release to promote muscle stem cell proliferation and differentiation and effective muscle regeneration after traumatic injury.

Semiconductor polymers containing selenophene in their backbones and immunomodulatory groups in their side chains enable the fabrication of implantable bioelectronic devices with enhanced immune compatibility and low foreign-body response.

Polar skyrmions are of interest for nanoelectronics due to their exotic properties. However, so far, these are metastable states requiring a delicate balance of boundary conditions to form in heterostructures. In ferroelectric and antiferroelectric solid solutions, skyrmionic textures are observed to form in both bulk and film.

High-entropy systems can present a range of striking physical properties, but mainly involve metal alloys. Here, using low-energy proton irradiation, a high-entropy superparaelectric phase is generated in a relaxor ferroelectric composition, increasing polarizability and enabling a capacitive energy density of 45.7 J cm^–3.

Artificial DNA photofluids exhibit dissipative life-like motion when fuelled by light in space and time, converting photoenergy into out-of-equilibrium structures on the macroscale.

The authors report that the metallic spin-1/2 chain compound Ti₄MnBi₂ forms near a quantum critical point with inherent frustration. They identify strong 1D spin and 3D electron coupling that should stimulate the search for materials exhibiting a 1D Kondo effect and heavy fermions.