Volume 25 Issue 3, March 2026

A martensitic medium-entropy alloy surpasses the long-standing strength–ductility ceiling of conventional ultrahigh-strength steels. The strengthening without sacrificing ductility originates from Mo–B–C interface complexes that stabilize small-angle grain boundaries.

A study of phase transitions in two-dimensional halide perovskites uncovers distinct thermal and optical pathways through Ginzburg–Landau theory. The work identifies an optically driven metastable tetragonal phase, excited by Higgs phonon modes, offering insights into symmetry-breaking dynamics.

Room-temperature non-volatile antiferromagnetic switching in 140 picoseconds is demonstrated in a nanometre-thick metallic material.

A phase-change material enables in-memory computing by well-controlled multilevel switching without resistance drift.

A designed electron transport layer paired with an embrittled aluminium cathode sustains efficient electron injection under strain, resulting in largely enhanced light-emitting performance.

Charge frustration emerges as a key factor to explain the formation of overcharged ion structures next to an electrified surface.

Two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide arrays fabricated at wafer scale directly on a flexible substrate create large arrays of dual transistor devices for high sensitivity and multiplexed neural monitoring.

A single-step thermal process reliably generates high-density, narrowband quantum emitters in hexagonal boron nitride. More than 25% of these emitters show room-temperature optical spin readout, revealing S = 1 and S = 1/2 spin complexes that are explained by charge transfer from strongly to weakly coupled spin pairs.

An organic crystal containing open channels and discrete voids responds to CO₂ gas pressure by reversibly elongating along a single crystal axis. Although the voids initially appear too small to host CO₂, structural flexibility permits gradual gas penetration and void expansion, triggering a cascading deformation that amplifies macroscopically.

Fatigue-induced failures remain a critical challenge to the performance and reliability of metals and alloys due to their inherently complex and unpredictable nature. This Perspective highlights emerging frontiers in fatigue research, including key mechanistic insights, material designs for improving fatigue resistance and advances in fabrication, characterization and modelling techniques.

Heterostructured materials can exhibit superior performance compared with their homogeneous counterparts. This Perspective discusses the fundamental effects of heterostructural features, methods for evaluating these effects and practical considerations for guiding the design of heterostructured materials.

The non-equilibrium processing conditions inherent to additive manufacturing produce metals with unique microstructures and mechanical properties that are often unattainable through conventional routes. This Review provides an overview of distinctive mechanical behaviours and deformation mechanisms that arise from these characteristic microstructures, and discusses critical needs and emerging opportunities for alloy design and processing control to achieve exceptional mechanical properties in additively manufactured metals.

Guided by density functional theory, a commercially viable refractory alloy is developed, which exhibits excellent room-temperature ductility and strength, and high strength at elevated temperatures.

A martensitic alloy with a tensile strength exceeding 3 GPa and a fracture elongation of 5.13% is developed. These mechanical properties arise from interface complexes interacting with dense dislocation networks, which is a mechanism shown to be applicable to other compositions.

Light-induced phonon dynamics in 2D (BA)₂PbI₄ films reveal transient lattice shifts to a tetragonal phase, driven by Higgs-mode vibrations. Below-bandgap excitation causes larger spectral shifts, showing strong optomechanical coupling in perovskites.

Producing isolated single-photon emitters in hexagonal boron nitride with predefined spin transitions is challenging. Oxygen annealing enables the controlled fabrication of narrowband quantum emitters with optically active spin for quantum applications.

The authors identify two coexisting incommensurate charge density waves whose interplay leads to joint commensuration and a long-period moiré structure.

This study shows that the nodal loop topology in LaSb_xTe_2−x can be controlled by chemical substitution and electron doping. The reversible opening and closing of a gap larger than 400 meV in the nodal loop enables on-demand switching of topology.

This study reveals spatiotemporally resolved current-induced switching in Mn₃Sn thin films, identifying both thermal and non-thermal mechanisms depending on the amplitude of the current.

Supercapacitors are fast-charging energy-storage devices. However, an understanding of how structure impacts high-power energy storage is still lacking. Here pulsed-field-gradient nuclear magnetic resonance measurements show that the pore network tortuosity, rather than traditional porosity analyses, in porous carbon dictates the speed of supercapacitor charging.

Volcano plots are useful catalyst design tools for acidic oxygen reduction reaction, but have proved less successful for alkaline oxygen reduction reaction. Here, a modified volcano plot for this environment is developed and used to design PdH_x@Pt nanosheets with high oxygen reduction reaction performance.

Resistance drift, also known as the temporal change in electrical resistance, hampers the application of phase-change materials for neuromorphic computing. Here an amorphous CrTe₃ thin film with no resistance drift in the working temperature from −200 °C to 165 °C is reported.

A fast and scalable sensor using a core–shell nanowire network is reported to capture multimodal information through memristive switching.

Insufficient electron injection remains a limiting factor for the performance of stretchable organic light-emitting diodes. Here designs for both electron transport layer and cathode in stretchable organic light-emitting diodes are reported to achieve efficient electron injection.

Reversible and unidirectional expansion of an acicular porous molecular crystal is observed with gas uptake. Using in situ structural and photomicrographic techniques, a molecular-level insight is obtained that correlates macroscopic linear expansion of the crystal to the application of gas-specific pressure.

Atomic force microscopy is used to investigate the adsorption and organization of ions on charged surfaces. Trivalent ions adopt complex networks, clusters and layers associated with overcharging, whereas divalent ions follow classical predictions.

A combination of scanning probe microscopy and quantum sensing is used to investigate changes in water structure under confinement. A liquid–solid phase transition is observed in thin films of water below a confinement size of 2 nm at ambient temperature.

Through the programmable self-assembly of lipid-inspired radially symmetric DNA, porous molecular membranes and cell-sized compartments are formed with applications in bottom-up biology and soft robotics.

Two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂)-based active arrays made by growing wafer-scale trilayer MoS₂ directly on a polyimidine substrate achieve high-fidelity spatiotemporal neuronal monitoring in vitro and in living mice.

Human primary monocytes reversibly phase separate into regular, multicellular, multilayered domains on soft matrices with physiological stiffness due to local activation and global inhibition processes that occur during random cell migration.