Characterization and analytical techniques articles within Nature

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  • Article |

    Enhanced light–molecule interactions in high-finesse fibre-based Fabry–Pérot microcavities are used to detect and profile individual unlabelled solution-phase biomolecules, leading to potential applications in the life and chemical sciences.

    • Lisa-Maria Needham
    • , Carlos Saavedra
    •  & Randall H. Goldsmith

  • Article |

    A quasi-true time delay is demonstrated for a microwave device implemented in a CMOS technology to miniaturize true-time-delay components of beam-steering systems, addressing the fundamental channel-capacity limitations and increasing data transmission in wireless communications.

    • Bala Govind
    • , Thomas Tapen
    •  & Alyssa Apsel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An autonomous laboratory, the A-Lab, is presented that combines computations, literature data, machine learning and active learning, which discovered and synthesized 41 novel compounds from a set of 58 targets after 17 days of operation.

    • Nathan J. Szymanski
    • , Bernardus Rendy
    •  & Gerbrand Ceder

  • Article |

    A high-throughput, non-contact framework is described that uses the laser-induced vibrational signatures of metamaterials to non-destructively quantify their omnidirectional elastic information, dynamic linear properties, damping properties and defects.

    • Yun Kai
    • , Somayajulu Dhulipala
    •  & Carlos M. Portela

  • Article |

    Using a specialized tip as a detector, the fingerprints of a single atom of iron and terbium are observed in synchrotron X-ray absorption spectra, allowing elemental and chemical characterization one atom at a time.

    • Tolulope M. Ajayi
    • , Nozomi Shirato
    •  & Saw-Wai Hla

  • Article |

    The ability to resolve single atoms in a liquid environment is demonstrated by combining a transmission electron microscope and a robust double graphene liquid cell, enabling studies of adatom motion at solid–liquid interfaces.

    • Nick Clark
    • , Daniel J. Kelly
    •  & Sarah J. Haigh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using data gathered from the microphones of the Perseverance rover, the first characterization of the acoustic environment on Mars is presented, showing two distinct values for the speed of sound in CO2-dominated atmosphere.

    • S. Maurice
    • , B. Chide
    •  & P. Willis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Small-molecule serial femtosecond X-ray crystallography (smSFX) characterizes microcrystals by indexing sparse serial XFEL diffraction frames, with little sample preparation, without beam damage, and at room temperature and pressure.

    • Elyse A. Schriber
    • , Daniel W. Paley
    •  & J. Nathan Hohman

  • Article |

    The pressure dependence and magnetic field dependence of the specific heat of a quantum magnet, SrCu2(BO3)2, demonstrate that its phase diagram contains a line of first-order transitions terminating at a critical point, in analogy with water.

    • J. Larrea Jiménez
    • , S. P. G. Crone
    •  & F. Mila

  • Article |

    State-of-the-art electron energy-loss spectroscopy in a transmission electron microscope maps the detailed phonon spectra of single defects in silicon carbide

    • Xingxu Yan
    • , Chengyan Liu
    •  & Xiaoqing Pan

  • Article |

    Hydroxylapatite crystallites in human dental enamel show gradients in chemical composition, with a layer of magnesium enrichment on each side of a core rich in sodium, fluoride and carbonate ions.

    • Karen A. DeRocher
    • , Paul J. M. Smeets
    •  & Derk Joester

  • Article |

    Atomic-resolution observations combined with simulations show that grain boundaries within elemental copper undergo temperature-induced solid-state phase transformation to different structures; grain boundary phases can also coexist and are kinetically trapped structures.

    • Thorsten Meiners
    • , Timofey Frolov
    •  & Christian H. Liebscher

  • Article |

    A carrier-resolved photo-Hall technique is developed to extract properties of both majority and minority carriers simultaneously and determine the critical parameters of semiconductor materials under light illumination.

    • Oki Gunawan
    • , Seong Ryul Pae
    •  & Byungha Shin

  • Letter |

    Titration gas chromatography is developed as an analytical method of distinguishing between lithium metal and lithium compounds within a cycled battery and assessing the amount of unreacted metallic lithium available.

    • Chengcheng Fang
    • , Jinxing Li
    •  & Ying Shirley Meng

  • Letter |

    The thermal conductance of single-molecule junctions is measured using picowatt-resolution calorimetric scanning probes and is found to be nearly independent of the length of the alkanedithiol molecules studied.

    • Longji Cui
    • , Sunghoon Hur
    •  & Edgar Meyhofer

  • Letter |

    Techniques exist for imaging the magnetization patterns of magnetic thin films and at the surfaces of magnets, but here hard-X-ray tomography is used to image the three-dimensional magnetic structure within a micrometre-sized magnet in the vicinity of Bloch points.

    • Claire Donnelly
    • , Manuel Guizar-Sicairos
    •  & Laura J. Heyderman

  • Letter |

    A complete larval zebrafish brain is examined and its myelinated axons reconstructed using serial-section electron microscopy, revealing remarkable symmetry and providing a valuable resource.

    • David Grant Colburn Hildebrand
    • , Marcelo Cicconet
    •  & Florian Engert

  • Letter |

    An alloy design strategy that aims for phase metastability, rather than phase stability, is described that will lead to the development of transformation-induced plasticity-assisted, dual-phase high-entropy alloys, which exhibit a rare combined increase in strength and ductility.

    • Zhiming Li
    • , Konda Gokuldoss Pradeep
    •  & Cemal Cem Tasan

  • Letter |

    Using single-molecule fluorescence imaging of photoelectrocatalysis, the charge-carrier activities on single TiO2 nanorods and the corresponding water-oxidation photocurrent are mapped at high spatiotemporal resolution, revealing the best catalytic sites and the most effective sites for depositing an oxygen evolution catalyst.

    • Justin B. Sambur
    • , Tai-Yen Chen
    •  & Peng Chen

  • Letter |

    Nanoscale radiative heat transfer between both dielectric and metal surfaces separated by gaps as small as two nanometres is characterized by large gap-dependent heat transfer enhancements that are accurately modelled by the theoretical framework of fluctuational electrodynamics and has important implications for technological design.

    • Kyeongtae Kim
    • , Bai Song
    •  & Pramod Reddy

  • Letter |

    Metal-organic frameworks have a porous structure that has useful applications in gas adsorption; here, small-angle X-ray scattering is used to visualize the process of adsorption as gas pressure increases, revealing that adsorbate molecules interact across pore walls in a way that allows extra adsorbate domains to be created in the framework and to form superlattices, before the adsorbate settles down into a more uniform distribution.

    • Hae Sung Cho
    • , Hexiang Deng
    •  & Osamu Terasaki

  • Letter |

    Recent advances in electron microscopy are shown to allow vibrational spectroscopy at high spatial resolution in a scanning transmission electron microscope, and also to enable the direct detection of hydrogen.

    • Ondrej L. Krivanek
    • , Tracy C. Lovejoy
    •  & Peter A. Crozier

  • Letter |

    Microwave spectroscopy is used to map the sign of an electric dipole Rabi frequency — which depends directly on the chirality of the molecule — onto the phase of emitted microwave radiation, thereby determining the chirality of cold gas-phase molecules.

    • David Patterson
    • , Melanie Schnell
    •  & John M. Doyle

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