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Many volatile elements are depleted in the bulk silicate Earth. Here, the authors found that these volatile elements tend to react with Fe under pressure and may be sequestered within Earth’s core by forming substitutional Fe alloys.

X-ray Free Electron Lasers allow fast structure determination. Here, the authors push the temporal limit of atomic level structure determination to 25 fs, the length of a single pulse, paving the way to the study of fast, non-repeatable processes.

³He behaves like a Fermi liquid but only at very low temperatures. Here the authors re-examine thermal transport data, arguing that the breakdown of the Fermi liquid occurs when the scattering time falls below the Planckian time and suggesting that heat is partially carried by a collective hydrodynamic sound mode.

The molten structure of plutonium oxide—a component of mixed oxide nuclear fuels—is measured, showing some degree of covalent bonding. Its atomic structure is similar to that of cerium oxide, which could be a non-radioactive structural surrogate.

Manipulating the electronic properties of topological semimetals is a central goal of modern condensed matter physics research. Here, the authors demonstrate how a high-entropy engineering approach allows for the tuning of the crystal structure and the electronic states in a Dirac semimetal.

The molecular symmetry of solute structure in aqueous solutions is a key clue to understand Ostwald’s step rule. Here, the authors show that molecular symmetry and its structural evolution can govern the crystallization pathways in aqueous solutions.

As amorphous solids, glasses and gels are similar, but the origins of their different elastic properties are unclear. Simulations now suggest differing free-energy-minimizing pathways: structural ordering for glasses and interface reduction for gels.

Controlling phase transitions in solids is crucial for many applications. Ultrafast laser pulses have now been shown to enable the energy-efficient generation of structural fluctuations in VO₂ by harnessing the correlated disorder in the material.

The structure of GeO₂ melt has been debated for decades due to several unexplained bands present in the GeO2 melt Raman spectra. Here authors present a promising way to analyse melt structures from Raman spectra and they demonstrate threefold coordinated germanium is formed in the GeO₂ melt.

The frequency scaling exponent of low-frequency vibrational excitations in glasses remains controversial in the literature. Here, Schirmacher et al. show that the exponent depends on the statistics of the small values of the local stresses, which is governed by the detail of interaction potential.

Here authors explore volume diffusion within crystalline solids at the atomic scale. They use high resolution microscopy techniques to provide insights into the movement of individual atoms within a crystal lattice, revealing the intricate dynamics of volume diffusion processes.

Understanding liquid behavior is a challenge due to their disorder nature and rapid molecular rearrangements. Here, the authors show how weak interactions between OH groups and aromatic rings can participate in cooperative mechanisms that give rise to highly structured molecular arrangements in the liquid state.

Exploring and exploiting electric dipole arrangements analogously to what is possible with magnetic spin textures is an emerging prospect. Now a spontaneous toroidal polar topology is observed in ferroelectric liquid crystals.

The mechanism of amorphous-amorphous transitions is highly debated. Here, the authors use molecular dynamics simulations to reveal transitions via nucleation-growth or spinodal decomposition, resembling a thermodynamic phase transition but influenced by mechanics.

Dynamic compression experiments enable material studies in regimes relevant for planetary science, but temperature is difficult to measure in these challenging conditions. Here, the authors report on temperature, density, pressure, and structure of dynamically compressed Cu up to 1 TPa determined from extended x-ray absorption fine structure and velocimetry.

Our experimental proof of chiral phonons demonstrates a degree of freedom in condensed matter that is of fundamental importance and opens the door to exploration of emergent phenomena based on chiral bosons.

Two-dimensional materials could be good platforms to study the extremely subtle mechanical behaviors. Here, the authors measure an anomalous isotope effect on the mechanical properties of boron nitride monolayers, originated from ultrafine isotopic nuclear charge.

Understanding the behavior of jammed granular matter is important for a range of phenomena, from materials science to geology. Wang et al. uncover relations between stress correlations and emergence of localized shear bands due to external shear stress, which breaks the rotational symmetry.

Power-law scaling of low-frequency vibrational density of states is widely observed in glassy materials, yet the value of scaling exponents remains controversial. Here, Xu et al. identify two scaling exponents by separating stable from unstable glass to reconcile the debate in the literature.

Fluid-solid interaction, long investigated, is mostly neglected in topological acoustics. Here the authors find that it can give rise to intriguing topological phenomena in simple phononic crystals due to intrinsic differences between sound in fluid and solid.

Here, Zhang et al. succeed in creating a heavily distorted oxygen deficient film of lanthanum cobaltite. The new phase of LaCoO_2.5 has several unique properties, most notably, a Curie temperature of 284 K, significantly larger than the films from which it was derived.

The properties of materials can be drastically modified under extreme pressure. Here the authors investigate ramp-compressed sodium to 5 million atmospheres with in situ X-ray diffraction and optical reflectivity, revealing a complex temperature-driven polymorphism and suggesting the formation of a previously predicted electride phase.

Many material properties are governed by the internal dislocation network within the material. Here, the authors describe a method to determine the three dimensional position and type of dislocations from a measurement along only a single direction within a scanning transmission electron microscope.

Superionic materials are of interest for solid-state batteries or thermoelectrics, yet a clear understanding of the atomistic mechanisms is lacking. Here it is shown that transverse acoustic phonons persist above the superionic transition in argyrodite Ag₈SnSe₆, and that the free-Se sublattice controls fast Ag cation diffusion.

Liquids near a solid surface form an interfacial layer where the molecular structure is different from the bulk. Here the authors report atomic resolution three-dimensional images of electrolyte solutions that demonstrate the existence of three types of interfacial structures as a function of concentration.

It is experimentally challenging to observe an intermediate liquid in solid–solid phase transitions due to short lifetimes of the resulting metastable states. Here, Linet al. show that a metastable bismuth liquid can be formed from a crystalline solid through decompression and maintained for hours.

Silver compounds have long been known to possess exceptional solid-state conductivity. Here the authors present silvercloso-boranes in which facile Ag⁺migration occurs, leading to exceptionally high ion conductivities and potential utility in silver nanowire production and photocatalysis due to their semiconductivity.

Glasses show peculiar relaxation dynamics below glass transition temperature, yet a deeper understanding of this phenomenon is still lacking. Wu et al. show the coexistence of stretched and compressed relaxation in a metallic glass system and attribute their origins to different local cluster structures.

Ultrasmall metallic clusters receive great attention for atom-efficient catalysts. Here a metallic cluster–organic framework is synthesized and characterized; authors demonstrate its stability and catalytic proficiency, paving the way for molecular-scale metal nanoparticle interlocking.

The behaviour of ions solvated in water is highly ion-specific. Introducing a length scale that captures the interplay between ion-water and inter-water interactions, along with considering the bond-orientational order of the hydration shell, provides an explanation for the ion-specific effects observed in salt solutions.

Understanding glass transition would rely on the knowledge of the structural ordering upon slow cooling in the absence of crystallization or phase separation. The authors identify exotic compositional order, not accompanied by any thermodynamic signature, directly impacts the structural relaxation dynamics.

Superionic water is believed to exist in the interior of ice giant planets. By combining machine learning and free-energy methods, the phase behaviours of water at the extreme pressures and temperatures prevalent in such planets are predicted.

The fragility describes the degree of slowdown in material dynamics as approaching glass transition temperature, but its molecular origin remains unclear. Here, Yildirim et al.show a strong correlation between temperature-dependent spatial distribution of molecular rigidity and the fragility index.

Mechanical relaxation processes in glasses can provide information on the structural and mechanical properties of glasses. Here, the authors observe a fast secondary relaxation process in La-based metallic glasses, providing information on the inelasticity of metallic glasses.

Cellulose nanocrystals suspensions self-assemble into cholesteric liquid crystalline droplets, namely tactoids, which then condense into helical structures upon drying. Here, Wang et al. capture the structural evolution of this nucleation process by trapping and protecting tactoids in a polymer matrix.

Interfaces between two materials often show interesting properties. Here, the authors demonstrate that diamond and cubic boron nitride, the hardest materials known, can be grown on top of each other through a novel misfit accommodation mechanism, forming a two-dimensional electron gas at the interface.

Ultrafast excitation offers new routes to controlling material properties on short timescales, but probes are needed to better understand the changes. By studying the phonon spectrum of VO₂ in the time domain, Wall et al. find a prompt change in lattice potential after a photoinduced structural transition.

In 2D electron gases, insulating behaviour at low fractional quantum Hall filling factors is understood by the formation of an electronic Wigner solid. Here, the authors use microwave spectroscopy to evidence an electron liquid–solid mixed phase in bilayer states of GaAs/AlGaAs wide quantum wells.

Metallic glasses (MG) have higher yield strengths than crystalline alloys but at the same time are very brittle, which has hampered practical applications. Here, the authors use flash Joule heating to design a MG-matrix composite with a uniform distribution of ductile crystals, improving mechanical properties.

Beta-relaxation in glasses is commonly attributed to the confined motions of constituent atoms in nanosized domains, but there is no direct evidence so far. Here, Zhu et al. show the correlation between the evolution of spatial heterogeneity at nanoscale and beta-relaxation below glass transition point.

The initiation of explosions is thought to result from ‘hot spot’ generation at localized microstructures in energetic material, although experimental evidence has been limited. Here, the authors show controllable hot spot formation in solid composites using an ultrasonic hammer, introducing a new method of study.

The existing glass transition theories show little dimensional dependence. Here Flenner et al. disprove this general consensus by finding that, for instance, the bond-orientational relaxation is decoupled from the translational relaxation in two dimensions, but not in three dimensions.

The structure of a commercially important glass-ceramic ZrO₂-doped lithium aluminosilicate system during its initial nucleation stage was investigated by an X-ray multiscale analysis which enables us to observe the structure from the atomic to the nanometer scale by using diffraction, small-angle scattering, absorption, and anomalous scattering techniques. The combinatorial approach revealed that the formation of edge sharing between the ZrO_x polyhedra and (Si/Al)O₄ tetrahedra, and that the Zr-centric periodic structure in which the local structure of the Zr⁴⁺ ions resembled a cubic or tetragonal ZrO₂ crystalline phase was potentially the initial crystal nucleus for the Zr-doped lithium aluminosilicate glass-ceramic.

Tessellation of self-assembling molecular building blocks is attractive for accessing metal-organic materials with geometric frustration, however such motifs are rare. Here the authors use ytterbium(II) as a five-vertex node to assemble an Archimedean tessellation in a bulk, molecule-based material.

The relationship between Mott state and charge density wave state in two dimensional materials remains unclear. Here, Liu et al. reveal spatial distribution of a Mott-Hubbard band in monolayer 1T-NbSe₂ forming a new periodic pattern in addition to the well-known CDW pattern.

Water ice exhibits several hydrogen-ordered and disordered phases and it’s unclear if a disordered phase can transform into only one ordered phase. Here, the authors identify a partially hydrogen-ordered phase at high pressure, ice XIX, as the second hydrogen-ordered phase of ice VI beside ice XV.

Soft building blocks tend to be near spherical, limiting their packing structures to those found in metallic systems. Here the authors report the spontaneous generation of highly deformed mesoatoms using molecular pentagons and observe Frank–Kasper phases not found in metal alloys.

Commercial alloys contain trace solutes that segregate at grain boundaries but have been difficult to directly image due to electron beam damage. Here, the authors use atomic-resolution energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy at lower electron voltage to image segregation at magnesium alloy twin boundaries.

The directed self-assembly (DSA) of block copolymers (BCPs) has shown great promise in fabricating customized two-dimensional (2D) geometries at the nano- and mesoscale. Here, the authors report the discovery of spontaneous symmetry breaking and superlattice formation in DSA of BCP.