Transition-metal sulfides can accelerate sulfur reactions in all-solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries, but their own stability during cycling has received less attention. Researchers uncovered two major catalyst failure pathways and used these insights to develop a compositionally disordered catalyst. The new design suppresses phase separation and transition metal migration while maintaining carrier transport, enabling efficient sulfur conversion under demanding battery conditions.

Researchers have uncovered how compressive strain and oxygen contents drive Ruddlesden–Popper nickelate thin films toward superconductivity. X-ray reveals that key electronic orbitals become increasingly delocalized while long-range magnetic order is suppressed, yet short-range magnetic excitations remain robust. The findings identify an orbital-selective pathway toward high-temperature superconductivity in Ruddlesden–Popper nickelates.

Beauty and mystery – it is hard to imagine a more alluring combination, and this is precisely what we encounter when we observe phenomena in the nanoworld. But are we really sure that observations made using modern microscopic techniques do not influence what is happening there? The answers are provided by Cracow scientists. A comparison of images of copper oxide nanoparticles reacting with chloroauric acid, obtained using electron and photon beams, has yielded unexpected results.

A new hydrogel electrolyte controls water reactivity and stabilizes both electrodes in aqueous zinc-iodine batteries. Laboratory cells operated from minus 40 to 90 °C Celsius, while a 120 mAh pouch cell retained about 83% capacity after 2,300 cycles.

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have created a carbon material with a three-dimensional structure. The material, named diamondiyne, can be described as a porous diamond with the same basic shape as a tetrahedron. 

A research team has developed a dual-mode reconfigurable phototransistor based on a PtTe₂/WS₂ van der Waals heterostructure. By modulating the source-drain bias, the device's operating mechanism can be switched between photoconductive (PC) and photovoltaic (PV) modes. The PC mode delivers high photoconductive gain and a responsivity of 1.37 A/W, while the PV mode offers outstanding specific detectivity (9.42×10¹⁴ Jones) and fast response times (rise/fall of ~26 µs/23 µs). Leveraging the combination of light illumination states and bias polarity, the device produces four stable and distinguishable current levels, enabling multiple optical logic gates (XNOR, NOR, XOR) and robust four-state image encryption with a low average pixel correlation coefficient of 0.03. This work provides a versatile, low-power platform for advanced reconfigurable optoelectronics and secure optical communication.

Simple starting materials converted into complex ring structures, with applications to natural product synthesis