Nature MaterialsPub Date : 2025-04-17DOI: 10.1038/s41563-025-02213-x
Nan Li, Seounghun Kang, Zhichang Liu, Shinya Wai, Zhe Cheng, Yahao Dai, Ani Solanki, Songsong Li, Yang Li, Joseph Strzalka, Michael J. V. White, Yun-Hi Kim, Bozhi Tian, Jeffrey A. Hubbell, Sihong Wang
{"title":"Immune-compatible designs of semiconducting polymers for bioelectronics with suppressed foreign-body response","authors":"Nan Li, Seounghun Kang, Zhichang Liu, Shinya Wai, Zhe Cheng, Yahao Dai, Ani Solanki, Songsong Li, Yang Li, Joseph Strzalka, Michael J. V. White, Yun-Hi Kim, Bozhi Tian, Jeffrey A. Hubbell, Sihong Wang","doi":"10.1038/s41563-025-02213-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02213-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>One of the greatest obstacles to achieving implantable electronics with long-term functionality and minimized inflammatory reactions is the immune-mediated foreign-body response (FBR). Recently, semiconducting polymers with mixed electron–ion conductivity have been demonstrated as promising candidates to achieve direct electrical interfacing on bio-tissues. However, there is limited understanding of their immune compatibility in vivo, and strategies for minimizing the FBR through molecular design remain underexplored. Here we introduce a set of molecular design strategies for enhancing the immune compatibility of semiconducting polymers. Specifically, we show that selenophene, when incorporated in the backbone, can mitigate the FBR by suppressing macrophage activation. In addition, side-chain functionalization with immunomodulatory groups decreases the FBR further by downregulating the expression of inflammatory biomarkers. Together, our synthesized polymers achieve suppression of the FBR by as much as 68% (as indicated by the collagen density). In the meantime, these immune-compatible designs still provide a high charge-carrier mobility of around 1 cm<sup>2</sup> V<sup>−1</sup> s<sup>−1</sup>. We anticipate that such immune-compatible design principles can be translated to a variety of conjugated polymers to suppress the FBR for implantable applications.</p>","PeriodicalId":19058,"journal":{"name":"Nature Materials","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":41.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143842018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature MaterialsPub Date : 2025-04-15DOI: 10.1038/s41563-025-02216-8
Weijie Zheng, Xingyue Ma, Zhentao Pang, Yifeng Ren, Hongying Chen, Jibo Xu, Chunyan Zheng, Jianyi Liu, Xiaohui Liu, Yu Deng, Yuefeng Nie, Di Wu, Laurent Bellaiche, Yurong Yang, Zheng Wen
{"title":"Skyrmion nanodomains in ferroelectric–antiferroelectric solid solutions","authors":"Weijie Zheng, Xingyue Ma, Zhentao Pang, Yifeng Ren, Hongying Chen, Jibo Xu, Chunyan Zheng, Jianyi Liu, Xiaohui Liu, Yu Deng, Yuefeng Nie, Di Wu, Laurent Bellaiche, Yurong Yang, Zheng Wen","doi":"10.1038/s41563-025-02216-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02216-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Polar skyrmions have demonstrated rich physics and exotic properties for developing novel functionalities. However, so far, skyrmion nanodomains exist only in a few material systems, such as ferroelectric/dielectric superlattices, free-standing PbTiO<sub>3</sub>/SrTiO<sub>3</sub> epitaxial bilayers and ultrathin Pb(Zr,Ti)O<sub>3</sub>/SrTiO<sub>3</sub>/Pb(Zr,Ti)O<sub>3</sub> sandwiches. These heterostructures are fabricated with elaborately designed boundary conditions to meet the delicate energy balance for stabilizing topological phases. This requirement limits the broad applications of skyrmions in electronic devices. Here we show widespread skyrmion nanodomains in ferroelectric–antiferroelectric solid solutions, composed of ferroelectric PbTiO<sub>3</sub> and one antiferroelectric PbSnO<sub>3</sub> (Pb(Ti<sub>1–<i>x</i></sub>Sn<sub><i>x</i></sub>)O<sub>3</sub>), PbHfO<sub>3</sub> (Pb(Ti<sub>1–<i>x</i></sub>Hf<sub><i>x</i></sub>)O<sub>3</sub>) or PbZrO<sub>3</sub> (Pb(Ti<sub>1–<i>x</i></sub>Zr<sub><i>x</i></sub>)O<sub>3</sub>). The skyrmionic textures are formed by engineering dipole–dipole and antiferrodistortive–dipole couplings in competition between ferroelectric and antiferroelectric polar orderings, allowing the stabilization of topological phases. A phase diagram is built for the three solid solution series, revealing the stabilization regions of skyrmion nanodomains. In addition, the non-trivial domains also exhibit improved switching character, reversible writing/erasure and long-term retention for the electrical manipulation of polar configurations. These findings open an avenue for the investigation and exploitation of polar skyrmions in ferroelectric-based materials, providing opportunities in topological electronics.</p>","PeriodicalId":19058,"journal":{"name":"Nature Materials","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":41.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143831665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature MaterialsPub Date : 2025-04-11DOI: 10.1038/s41563-025-02203-z
Oliver Lin, Zhichu Tang, Qian Chen
{"title":"Locating dislocations in organic crystals","authors":"Oliver Lin, Zhichu Tang, Qian Chen","doi":"10.1038/s41563-025-02203-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02203-z","url":null,"abstract":"The formation of dislocations upon slip–slide events in organic crystals has been revealed by advanced electron microscopy and data-mining techniques.","PeriodicalId":19058,"journal":{"name":"Nature Materials","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":41.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143819171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature MaterialsPub Date : 2025-04-10DOI: 10.1038/s41563-025-02172-3
Praveen Pai, Fan Zhang
{"title":"Shedding light on quantum geometry","authors":"Praveen Pai, Fan Zhang","doi":"10.1038/s41563-025-02172-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02172-3","url":null,"abstract":"Measuring the bulk photovoltaic effect in twisted bilayer graphene provides a fascinating way to probe the quantum geometry shaped by interactions.","PeriodicalId":19058,"journal":{"name":"Nature Materials","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":41.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143813691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature MaterialsPub Date : 2025-04-10DOI: 10.1038/s41563-025-02189-8
Ahmed Ali Said, Stefaan De Wolf
{"title":"A non-fullerene acceptor for perovskites","authors":"Ahmed Ali Said, Stefaan De Wolf","doi":"10.1038/s41563-025-02189-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02189-8","url":null,"abstract":"A non-fullerene-based electron-transporting material helps achieve superior efficiency, thermal stability, processability and defect passivation in perovskite solar cells.","PeriodicalId":19058,"journal":{"name":"Nature Materials","volume":"108 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":41.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143813832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature MaterialsPub Date : 2025-04-10DOI: 10.1038/s41563-025-02210-0
Tristan Asset
{"title":"Bridging the gap between precatalysts and electrocatalysts","authors":"Tristan Asset","doi":"10.1038/s41563-025-02210-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02210-0","url":null,"abstract":"An operando tracking and tuning of the activation procedure of oxygen evolution electrocatalysts substantially enhances durability, highlighting the importance of informed and controlled transformations of precatalysts for applicative design.","PeriodicalId":19058,"journal":{"name":"Nature Materials","volume":"103 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":41.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143813729","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature MaterialsPub Date : 2025-04-09DOI: 10.1038/s41563-025-02202-0
Qi-Hong Zhao, Jin-Ying Qi, Nan-Nan Deng
{"title":"DNA photofluids show life-like motion","authors":"Qi-Hong Zhao, Jin-Ying Qi, Nan-Nan Deng","doi":"10.1038/s41563-025-02202-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02202-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>As active matter, cells exhibit non-equilibrium structures and behaviours such as reconfiguration, motility and division. These capabilities arise from the collective action of biomolecular machines continuously converting photoenergy or chemical energy into mechanical energy. Constructing similar dynamic processes in vitro presents opportunities for developing life-like intelligent soft materials. Here we report an active fluid formed from the liquid–liquid phase separation of photoresponsive DNA nanomachines. The photofluids can orchestrate and amplify nanoscale mechanical movements by orders of magnitude to produce macroscopic cell-like behaviours including elongation, division and rotation. We identify two dissipative processes in the DNA droplets, photoalignment and photofibrillation, which are crucial for harnessing stochastic molecular motions cooperatively. Our results demonstrate an active liquid molecular system that consumes photoenergy to create ordered out-of-equilibrium structures and behaviours. This system may help elucidate the physical principles underlying cooperative motion in active matter and pave the way for developing programmable interactive materials.</p>","PeriodicalId":19058,"journal":{"name":"Nature Materials","volume":"96 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":41.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143805626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature MaterialsPub Date : 2025-04-09DOI: 10.1038/s41563-025-02211-z
Chenyi Li, Yang Liu, Bo Li, Ze Yuan, Tiannan Yang, Yuquan Liu, Hanxiao Gao, Linxiao Xu, Xiang Yu, Quan Luo, Shengfei Tang, Minghai Yao, Yutie Gong, Zekai Fei, Long-Qing Chen, Haibo Zhang, Huamin Zhou, Qing Wang
{"title":"Enhanced energy storage in high-entropy ferroelectric polymers","authors":"Chenyi Li, Yang Liu, Bo Li, Ze Yuan, Tiannan Yang, Yuquan Liu, Hanxiao Gao, Linxiao Xu, Xiang Yu, Quan Luo, Shengfei Tang, Minghai Yao, Yutie Gong, Zekai Fei, Long-Qing Chen, Haibo Zhang, Huamin Zhou, Qing Wang","doi":"10.1038/s41563-025-02211-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02211-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Relaxor ferroelectrics have been intensively studied during the past two decades for capacitive energy storage in modern electronics and electrical power systems. However, the energy density of relaxor ferroelectrics is fundamentally limited by early polarization saturation and largely reduced polarization despite high dielectric constants. To overcome this challenge, here we report the formation of a high-entropy superparaelectric phase in relaxor ferroelectric polymers induced by low-dose proton irradiation, which exhibits delayed polarization saturation, reduced ferroelectric loss and markedly improved polarizability. Our combined theoretical and experimental results reveal that new chemical bonds generated by the irradiation-induced chemical reactions are essential to the formation of the high-entropy state in ferroelectric polymers. The high-entropy superparaelectric phase endows the polymer with a substantially enhanced intrinsic energy density of 45.7 J cm<sup>–3</sup> at room temperature, outperforming the current ferroelectric polymers and nanocomposites under the same electric field. Our work widens the high-entropy concept in ferroelectrics and lays the foundation for the future exploration of high-performance ferroelectric polymers.</p>","PeriodicalId":19058,"journal":{"name":"Nature Materials","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":41.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143805625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature MaterialsPub Date : 2025-04-08DOI: 10.1038/s41563-025-02208-8
Joel E. Moore
{"title":"Spin chains enter their heavy-metal phase","authors":"Joel E. Moore","doi":"10.1038/s41563-025-02208-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02208-8","url":null,"abstract":"Chains of localized spins coexist with conduction electrons in Ti4MnBi2, enabling studies of how the collective physics of one-dimensional magnets is modified in metals.","PeriodicalId":19058,"journal":{"name":"Nature Materials","volume":"86 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":41.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143798135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature MaterialsPub Date : 2025-04-08DOI: 10.1038/s41563-025-02192-z
X. Y. Li, A. Nocera, K. Foyevtsova, G. A. Sawatzky, M. Oudah, N. Murai, M. Kofu, M. Matsuura, H. Tamatsukuri, M. C. Aronson
{"title":"Frustrated spin-1/2 chains in a correlated metal","authors":"X. Y. Li, A. Nocera, K. Foyevtsova, G. A. Sawatzky, M. Oudah, N. Murai, M. Kofu, M. Matsuura, H. Tamatsukuri, M. C. Aronson","doi":"10.1038/s41563-025-02192-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02192-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Electronic correlations lead to heavy quasiparticles in three-dimensional (3D) metals, and their collapse can destabilize magnetic moments. It is an open question whether there is an analogous instability in one-dimensional (1D) systems, unanswered due to the lack of metallic spin chain materials. We report neutron scattering measurements and density matrix renormalization group calculations establishing spinons in the correlated metal Ti<sub>4</sub>MnBi<sub>2</sub>, confirming that its magnetism is 1D. Ti<sub>4</sub>MnBi<sub>2</sub> is inherently frustrated, forming near a quantum critical point that separates different phases at temperature <i>T</i> = 0. One-dimensional magnetism dominates at the lowest <i>T</i>, and is barely affected by weak interchain coupling. Ti<sub>4</sub>MnBi<sub>2</sub> is a previously unrecognized metallic spin chain in which 3D conduction electrons become strongly correlated due to their coupling to 1D magnetic moments.</p>","PeriodicalId":19058,"journal":{"name":"Nature Materials","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":41.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143798274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}