April 2012 Volume 11, Issue 4

Editorial

The scientific marketplace p259
doi:10.1038/nmat3300
To ensure that their work gets the funding and the attention it deserves, scientists need to engage with different stakeholders. Concepts from marketing could help them increase the impact of their efforts.
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Correspondence

A photoferroelectric material is more than the sum of its parts p260
J. Kreisel, M. Alexe and P. A. Thomas
doi:10.1038/nmat3282
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Commentary

One-click science marketing pp261 - 263
Martin Fenner
doi:10.1038/nmat3283
Strong competition and funding squeezes require scientists to look for ways to increase their profile and impact within and beyond the scientific community. Online tools and services can help them communicate and publicize their research more effectively.
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Interview

The m word pp264 - 265
doi:10.1038/nmat3276
Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and author of a blog and a recent book titled Marketing for Scientists, talked to Nature Materials about his views on the progress of scientific business from Versailles in the 1700s to modern days.
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Research Highlights

Solar fibre lasers | Printed MOFs | Water from other worlds | Live bacteria resist attraction | Zoom-in on organic memory

News and Views

Letters

Characterization of supercooled liquid Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ and its crystallization by ultrafast-heating calorimetry pp279 - 283
J. Orava, A. L. Greer, B. Gholipour, D. W. Hewak and C. E. Smith
doi:10.1038/nmat3275
Even though phase-change materials are used in optical as well as electronic information storage applications, some issues, such as their fast crystallization kinetics, remain poorly understood. The use of ultrafast differential scanning calorimetry now reveals that the fast kinetics is based on properties similar to those of fragile liquids.
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See also: News and Views by Wuttig & Salinga

Anisotropic conductance at improper ferroelectric domain walls pp284 - 288
D. Meier, J. Seidel, A. Cano, K. Delaney, Y. Kumagai, M. Mostovoy, N. A. Spaldin, R. Ramesh and M. Fiebig
doi:10.1038/nmat3249
Oxide materials show a versatile range of phenomena that in many cases can be controlled by growing thin films of oxides next to each other. The observation now that electrical conductance of domain walls in a ferroelectric can be tuned simply through the domain-wall orientation offers a flexible way of controlling functionality in complex oxides.
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Reversible electrical switching of spin polarization in multiferroic tunnel junctions pp289 - 293
D. Pantel, S. Goetze, D. Hesse and M. Alexe
doi:10.1038/nmat3254
Magnetic tunnel junctions play an important role in controlling electron spin in spintronic devices. The reversible, remanent switching of electron-spin polarization in multiferroic tunnel junctions now enables significant technological possibilities for spin electronics.
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The shear mode of multilayer graphene pp294 - 300
P. H. Tan, W. P. Han, W. J. Zhao, Z. H. Wu, K. Chang, H. Wang, Y. F. Wang, N. Bonini, N. Marzari, N. Pugno, G. Savini, A. Lombardo and A. C. Ferrari
doi:10.1038/nmat3245
Raman spectroscopy has already proved to be a powerful tool for studying the properties of single graphene layers. It is now shown that this technique can also provide information on the interaction between graphene sheets in multilayered graphene structures. In particular, a Raman peak corresponding to the interlayer shear mode, and probably linked to the interlayer coupling, is unveiled.
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Gated three-terminal device architecture to eliminate persistent photoconductivity in oxide semiconductor photosensor arrays pp301 - 305
Sanghun Jeon, Seung-Eon Ahn, Ihun Song, Chang Jung Kim, U-In Chung, Eunha Lee, Inkyung Yoo, Arokia Nathan, Sungsik Lee, John Robertson and Kinam Kim
doi:10.1038/nmat3256
The slow decay of photoconductivity in amorphous oxide semiconductors hampers their use in photosensor arrays with viable frame rates. A gated sensor architecture now provides direct control over the Fermi-level position in the semiconductor layer, and eliminates persistent photoconductivity by accelerating electron recombination with ionized oxygen vacancy sites.
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On the molecular origin of supercapacitance in nanoporous carbon electrodes pp306 - 310
Céline Merlet, Benjamin Rotenberg, Paul A. Madden, Pierre-Louis Taberna, Patrice Simon, Yury Gogotsi and Mathieu Salanne
doi:10.1038/nmat3260
Although the superior electrochemical performance of supercapacitors capable of rapidly storing electrical energy is due to reversible ion adsorption in porous carbon electrodes, the molecular origin of this phenomenon is still poorly understood. A quantitative picture of the structure of an ionic liquid adsorbed inside realistically modelled microporous carbon electrodes is now proposed.
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⁷Li MRI of Li batteries reveals location of microstructural lithium  pp311 - 315
S. Chandrashekar, Nicole M. Trease, Hee Jung Chang, Lin-Shu Du, Clare P. Grey and Alexej Jerschow
doi:10.1038/nmat3246
The development of reliable diagnostic tools to investigate the performance of a battery in situ is required at present. Techniques based on magnetic resonance imaging are now shown to be able to non-invasively visualize and characterize the changes occurring in Li-ion battery electrodes and electrolyte.
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Self-assembled RNA interference microsponges for efficient siRNA delivery pp316 - 322
Jong Bum Lee, Jinkee Hong, Daniel K. Bonner, Zhiyong Poon and Paula T. Hammond
doi:10.1038/nmat3253
siRNA delivery has so far been hampered by carriers that inefficiently encapsulate RNA, and by its degradation prior to cellular uptake. Now, self-assembled crystalline microsponges consisting solely of cleavable RNA strands [mdash] which are converted to siRNA only after cellular uptake [mdash] achieve, with three orders of magnitude lower concentration, the same degree of gene silencing as conventional siRNA nanocarriers.
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See also: News and Views by Grabow & Jaeger

Articles

New magnetic phase diagram of (Sr,Ca)₂RuO₄  pp323 - 328
J. P. Carlo, T. Goko, I. M. Gat-Malureanu, P. L. Russo, A. T. Savici, A. A. Aczel, G. J. MacDougall, J. A. Rodriguez, T. J. Williams, G. M. Luke, C. R. Wiebe, Y. Yoshida, S. Nakatsuji, Y. Maeno, T. Taniguchi and Y. J. Uemura
doi:10.1038/nmat3236
In most unconventional superconductors, the superconducting phase is adjacent to a phase with some type of magnetic order. However, this is not a universal feature. For example, no magnetic order has so far been observed in Sr₂RuO₄. Now, low-energy muon relaxation experiments show the presence of a static magnetic order for this material, suggesting that this feature may in fact be universal.
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Nanoscale strain-induced pair suppression as a vortex-pinning mechanism in high-temperature superconductors pp329 - 336
A. Llordés, A. Palau, J. Gázquez, M. Coll, R. Vlad, A. Pomar, J. Arbiol, R. Guzmán, S. Ye, V. Rouco, F. Sandiumenge, S. Ricart, T. Puig, M. Varela, D. Chateigner, J. Vanacken, J. Gutiérrez, V. Moshchalkov, G. Deutscher, C. Magen and X. Obradors
doi:10.1038/nmat3247
It is well known that to reduce dissipation in a superconductor it is necessary to introduce artificial pinning centres, that is, small regions in which superconductivity is suppressed. This is usually achieved by introducing small regions of non-superconducting phases. A new concept of pinning centres, the local suppression of superconductivity induced by strain, is now demonstrated.
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Ultrastable nanostructured polymer glasses pp337 - 343
Yunlong Guo, Anatoli Morozov, Dirk Schneider, Jae Woo Chung, Chuan Zhang, Maike Waldmann, Nan Yao, George Fytas, Craig B. Arnold and Rodney D. Priestley
doi:10.1038/nmat3234
The realization of ultrastable, nanostructured glassy polymer films by pulsed-laser evaporation is reported. Compared with standard poly(methyl methacrylate) glass, these polymer glasses are 40% less dense and have a 40-degree-higher glass transition temperature. Their unique properties, which are a manifestation of their globular nanostructure, should make these glasses attractive for applications where weight and stability are critical.
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See also: News and Views by Ediger & Yu

Mesoporous organohydrogels from thermogelling photocrosslinkable nanoemulsions pp344 - 352
Matthew E. Helgeson, Shannon E. Moran, Harry Z. An and Patrick S. Doyle
doi:10.1038/nmat3248
Mesoporous colloidal gels with solid-like viscoelasticity formed from oil-in-water nanoemulsions are reported. Gelation is thermoreversible and occurs through interdroplet bridging of an end-functionalized oligomer. The gels can be photocrosslinked to encapsulate lipophilic biomolecules for their subsequent release through ultraviolet photolysis.
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