Researchers John Crocker and Andrew Liu at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that biopolymer networks pruned by tension-inhibited methods remain rigid at much lower coordinations than those pruned randomly. This finding helps explain the evolutionary advantage of tension-inhibited filament-severing proteins in biological systems.
By understanding the compositional boundaries of the Ga-based tetrahelices in the III-VI-VII class of 1D van der Waals helices, a MRSEC team at the University of California, Irvine demonstrated, for the first time, the discovery of a bulk single crystal that features weakly bound helical chains of GaSI which is characterized by a non-natural helical cross section in a “squircle” geometry (hybrid between a square and a circle).
A MRSEC team at the University of California, Irvine has developed a generic neural network kinetics framework to solve diffusion problems in compositionally complex materials (CCMs)—in the process, addressing a long-standing challenge in modeling diffusion and chemical ordering in CCMs.
Intercalation of air-stable monolayer Pb into EG/SiC by confinement heteroepitaxy (CHet) enables study of heavy metal films at the extreme limit of thinness with complementary microscopy and spectroscopy. Pb coverages up to 90% can be achieved at elevated temperatures beyond those of conventional ultrahigh vacuum methods.
AC electric double layer gating (EDL) periodically applies large electric fields to two-dimensional gallium to enable the detection of a permanent dipole moment in the 2D layer, using microreflectivity. This validates predictions that 2D metals will have a dipole resulting from non-centrosymmetric bonding.
High-entropy materials shift the traditional materials discovery paradigm to one that leverages disorder, enabling access to unique chemistries unreachable through enthalpy alone. A MRSEC team at Penn State University has developed a high-throughput framework for discovering and understanding the single-phase formation of high-entropy oxides by integrating computation and experiment in a self-consistent feedback loop. To more rapidly explore rock salt composition space, the team utilizes CHGNet machine-learning interatomic potentials with impressive accuracy even in disordered systems.
Wisconsin MRSEC researchers have demonstrated that strain can dramatically alter the magnetoelastic properties of a two-dimensional material, CrSBr. Magnetoelasticity is the interaction between magnetism and strain. The researchers developed a nanoscale mechanical resonator device to measure the material’s magnetoelastic coupling. Using it, they showed that 2D CrSBr has a particularly large coupling, and that it can be tuned by 50% by stretching the 2D membrane.
Wisconsin MRSEC researchers have developed a new way to see how molecules fit together with an electron microscope. They used the method to see how molecules rearrange when an organic semiconductor is heated. A modest change in temperature creates significantly improved molecular alignment. The improved alignment is reflected in both larger aligned regions and straighter lines of molecules inside each region.
IRG2 has pushed the boundaries of energy transport in superatomic materials, controlling phonon, electron, and exciton interactions. The MRSEC team at Columbia University published a breakthrough report in Science and several follow up demonstrations of acoustic exciton-polarons quasiparticles in materials, such as the superatomic semiconductor Re6Se8Cl2, which enable ultrafast, phonon-shielded transport, surpassing silicon. The team also uncovered coherent superradiant transport in 1D superatomic crystals. They have now published a theoretical model to explain this new transport behavior.
The discovery of superconductivity in twisted graphene systems has generated tremendous interest, where low-energy flat bands with strong correlations play a key role. Flat bands may also be induced by moiré patterning in the transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), however experimental observation of superconductivity has remained absent. This raises the question as to whether superconductivity is a universal feature in flat-band, two-dimensional systems or there is some unique graphene-specific feature that makes superconductivity favorable.
