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Metallic material breaks 100-year thermal conductivity record

Transition metal nitride conducts heat nearly three times better than copper

Scientists explain why ‘seeding’ clouds with silver iodide is so efficient

New characterization of the material's surface reveals how an atom-level rearrangement aids the formation of ice crystals and promotes precipitation

A person in a laboratory suffused with dim red light

Graphite ‘hijacks’ the journey from molten carbon to diamond

Machine-learning-based molecular simulations reveal unexpected crystallization pathway

Series of diagrams showing different stages of graphite and diamond as they crystallize. A left to right arrow labelled "nucleation pathways" indicates the direction of progress of crystallization through the series. Graphite, shown in red, gradually forms stacks of disorderly rings. Diamond, shown in blue, gradually forms larger and larger regular crystals

Mysterious seismic wave speed-up deep within Earth’s mantle explained at last

A phase change in post-perovskite materials at the so-called D” discontinuity is also evidence for long-predicted slow, convective flows in the mantle itself

Two diagrams, one showing a "pie slice" cross-section of the Earth with the core on the inside and the lower mantle, upper mantle and thin crust above it, and the other showing a zoomed-in image of an area just above the lower mantle-core boundary. The zoomed-in image contains two scenarios. The first scenario shows the post-perovskite randomly oriented and labelled "no mantle flow" and "no discontinuity". The second shows the post-perovskite aligned and is labelled "mantle flow" and "D" discontinuity".

Has bismuth been masquerading as a topological material?

New research explains previous contradictory observations in terms of “topological blocking”, which may occur in other materials, too

Photo of a jagged, multicoloured, shiny bismuth crystal sitting on a scientific paper

Aluminium oxide reveals its surface secrets

New non-contact atomic force microscopy images shed more light on the "enigmatic insulator" aluminium oxide

noncontact atomic force microscopy and computational modelling was used to determine the structure of the aluminium oxide surface

Short-range order always appears in new type of alloy

New insights into hidden atomic ordering could help in the development of more robust alloys

Local chemical order forms in the liquid--solid interface even when the multi-principal element alloys are rapidly cooled

Crackling noise technique listens to nanoquakes in materials

New microscopy technique could be used to identify weak spots in metals and investigate biostructures

Photo of a person using a microscope, bathed in blue light

Palladium oxides could make better superconductors

New calculations reveal that palladates remain superconducting at higher temperatures than cuprates or nickelates

Calculations suggest that palladates might hit the sweet spot of electronic configuration for high-temperature superconductivity

Colloidal mixture exists in up to six phases at once

Finding could help scientists predict the phase stability of materials like paint and mayonnaise

Sketch of a two-phase equilibrium in which yellow spherical particles float above a forest of purple-blue rod-like particles

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