materials

Nature Communications, Published online: 25 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-73620-0 Formamidine-based perovskite solar cells promise high efficiency, but additive-induced deprotonation disrupts precursor stability and device performance. Dong et al. use a hydrolyzing ester additive to regulate proton transfer, stabilizing the precursor and achieve efficient, durable devices.

NASA’s new heat-resistant material could enable astronauts to extract metals and oxygen from Moon rocks, revolutionizing lunar exploration.

If you drop a block of modern standard concrete into the ocean, the salty seawater will slowly chew it apart. Within a few decades, chemical reactions erode the material, causing micro-cracks that eventually lead to catastrophic structural failure. Yet, two-thousand-year-old Roman piers, breakwaters, and harbor structures still stand completely intact across the Mediterranean coastline. Even more…

Nature Communications, Published online: 25 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-73606-y It is useful to be able to determine the changes a material has undergone, but this is challenging in synthetic systems. Here, the authors report the development of a hydrogel materials conditioned by swelling, allowing determination of exposure to heat and salt by nucleation changes.

Nature Chemistry, Published online: 25 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41557-026-02159-w Organic triplet excitons are ‘dark states’, rendering direct photoexcitation from the ground state and efficient phosphorescence difficult. Now it has been shown that attaching chromophores to lanthanide-doped nanocrystals enables spin-exchange-mediated direct triplet excitation and nanosecond-timescale, oxygen-insens…

The electrocatalytic valorization of furfural, a key biomass-derived platform molecule, offers a sustainable pathway for the synthesis of value-added chemicals under mild conditions. In this study, we report the development and application of nanostructured carbon-based electrodes, synthesized via a hard templating approach using SBA-15 silica and carbon precursors (furfuryl alcohol, FA, and glyc…

Nature Communications, Published online: 25 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-73144-7 The scarcity of effective doping strategies has so far limited the development of scalable complementary electronic circuits based on 2D semiconductors. Here, the authors report the fabrication of wafer-scale homogeneous top-gated complementary inverter arrays and logic circuits based on p-type and n-type doped 2…

The future of textiles is intelligent. My review in Discover Materials (Springer) examines fabrication technologies for functional & smart textiles nano-coating, electrospinning, 3D printing and applications in healthcare, defense, sportswear, and fashion.

Nature Physics, Published online: 25 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41567-026-03293-5 Tuning of the Stark effect in black phosphorus is used to build adjustable digital and analogue circuits including a high-performance transistor array for neural networks. It offers a promising opportunity for next-generation electronics.

Scientific Data, Published online: 25 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41597-026-07467-x High-fidelity super-resolution microscopy datasets spanning multispectral to hyperspectral domains via diffractive optics

Nature Communications, Published online: 25 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-73715-8 Control of excited state transitions is important for a range of applications, but can be challenging. Here, the authors report the tailoring of size, geometry and electronic properties of conjugated systems to control high-energy and lowest-energy triplet-mediated pathways.

Scientific Reports, Published online: 25 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41598-026-54090-2 Defect-mediated n-type to p-type transition and enhanced thermoelectric performance in Bi 1.8− x Ni x Sb 0.2 Te 3 alloys

Nature Communications, Published online: 25 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72531-4 Direct recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries is a promising and essential approach to address challenges related to energy security and resource sustainability. Herein, authors report an upcycling strategy that reconstructs degraded ternary layered oxide cathode materials into Li-rich oxides. The strategy is s…

Special pockets in these molecular structures make them useful in medicine, climate science and more.

Scientific Reports, Published online: 25 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41598-026-55151-2 Band gap engineering in Al, Cu, N and Al/Cu Co-doped ZnO thin films: experimental study and quantum machine learning prediction

Scientific Reports, Published online: 25 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41598-026-50473-7 Development of a model for design radiation shielding composite aprons using machine learning

Nature Communications, Published online: 25 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-73457-7 Using in situ Bragg coherent X-ay imaging and TEM analyses, the authors show Ru-doped perovskite exsolution occurs selectively at mixed dislocations that propagate from particle interiors as mobile vehicles, dynamically transporting Ru to surfaces.