Nature Materials, Published online: 26 July 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-01963-4Helical motifs in dense inorganic solids have remained exceedingly scarce. Now a type of 1D van der Waals helical crystal, GaSeI, is presented that manifests the rare quasi-periodic Boerdijk–Coxeter helix motif.

Nature Materials, Published online: 26 July 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-01953-6Mixed ionic–electronic transport in conducting polymers remains poorly understood. Here the authors observe non-equilibrium electronic transport when counterions are unable to equilibrate in response to gate-injected electronic carriers.

Nature Materials, Published online: 23 July 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-01960-7High-pressure experiments performed on aperiodic TRUMOF-1 demonstrate that this material remains crystalline up to pressures of 1.8 GPa, higher than other cubic metal–organic framework, due to the heterogeneous distribution of different shock-absorption mechanisms throughout...

Nature Materials, Published online: 23 July 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-01945-6Metal halide perovskite (MHP) materials could revolutionize photovoltaic (PV) technology but sustainability issues need to be considered. Here the authors outline how MHP-PV modules could scale a sustainable supply chain.

Nature Materials, Published online: 23 July 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-01955-4Propulsive motion in soft robotic systems requires the power amplification of stored energy. An accumulated strain energy-fracture power-amplification method is used to create light-driven soft robotic systems with a controlled launching ability.

Nature Materials, Published online: 18 July 2024; doi:10.1038/s41563-024-01952-7The authors report very high in-field critical current densities in Fe-based superconductors. They achieve this through doping to increase the carrier density and adding defects to pin vortices.