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An innovative technique uses ultrafast below-bandgap electric-field pulses to induce and probe an insulator–metal transition in an oxide thin film on which a metamaterial structure has been deposited. The switch from insulator to metal The transition from insulating to metallic behaviour and the microscopic interactions that accompany the transition are important phenomena in electronic materials. Until now it has not been possible to observe the transition directly in a time-resolved manner. Here, Richard Averitt and colleagues use ultrafast terahertz pulses to induce a phase transition in a prototypical insulator–metal transition material (vanadium dioxide) on which a metamaterial structure has been deposited. The metamaterial serves to amplify the local terahertz field, as well as to detect macroscopic changes in vanadium dioxide. Through direct, time-resolved observations, the authors establish a detailed microscopic picture of the structural and electronic changes underlying the insulator–metal transition. They conclude that their technique is versatile and could even be used to study phase transitions in superconductors. Electron–electron interactions can render an otherwise conducting material insulating 1 , with the insulator–metal phase transition in correlated-electron materials being the canonical macroscopic manifestation of the competition between charge-carrier itinerancy and localization. The transition can arise from underlying microscopic interactions among the charge, lattice, orbital and spin degrees of freedom, the complexity of which leads to multiple phase-transition pathways. For example, in many transition metal oxides, the insulator–metal transition has been achieved with external stimuli, including temperature, light, electric field, mechanical strain or magnetic field 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 . Vanadium dioxide is particularly intriguing because both the lattice and on-site Coulomb repulsion contribute to the insulator-to-metal transition at 340 K (ref. 8 ). Thus, although the precise microscopic origin of the phase transition remains elusive, vanadium dioxide serves as a testbed for correlated-electron phase-transition dynamics. Here we report the observation of an insulator–metal transition in vanadium dioxide induced by a terahertz electric field. This is achieved using metamaterial-enhanced picosecond, high-field terahertz pulses to reduce the Coulomb-induced potential barrier for carrier transport 9 . A nonlinear metamaterial response is observed through the phase transition, demonstrating that high-field terahertz pulses provide alternative pathways to induce collective electronic and structural rearrangements. The metamaterial resonators play a dual role, providing sub-wavelength field enhancement that locally drives the nonlinear response, and global sensitivity to the local changes, thereby enabling macroscopic observation of the dynamics 10 , 11 . This methodology provides a powerful platform to investigate low-energy dynamics in condensed matter and, further, demonstrates that integration of metamaterials with complex matter is a viable pathway to realize functional nonlinear electromagnetic composites.

Understanding exotic forms of magnetism in quantum mechanical systems is a central goal of modern condensed matter physics, with implications for systems ranging from high-temperature superconductors to spintronic devices. Simulating magnetic materials in the vicinity of a quantum phase transition is computationally intractable on classical computers, owing to the extreme complexity arising from quantum entanglement between the constituent magnetic spins. Here we use a degenerate Bose gas of rubidium atoms confined in an optical lattice to simulate a chain of interacting quantum Ising spins as they undergo a phase transition. Strong spin interactions are achieved through a site-occupation to pseudo-spin mapping. As we vary a magnetic field, quantum fluctuations drive a phase transition from a paramagnetic phase into an antiferromagnetic phase. In the paramagnetic phase, the interaction between the spins is overwhelmed by the applied field, which aligns the spins. In the antiferromagnetic phase, the interaction dominates and produces staggered magnetic ordering. Magnetic domain formation is observed through both in situ site-resolved imaging and noise correlation measurements. By demonstrating a route to quantum magnetism in an optical lattice, this work should facilitate further investigations of magnetic models using ultracold atoms, thereby improving our understanding of real magnetic materials. Giving quantum magnetism a spin Quantum simulation of condensed-matter systems using ultracold atoms provides a way to study problems that are computationally intractable on classical computers. Using an ultracold gas of rubidium atoms confined in an optical lattice, Simon et al . simulate quantum magnetism in a chain of spins and observe a quantum phase transition from a paramagnetic phase into an antiferromagnetic phase. This work provides a tunable platform for studies of magnetic quantum phase transitions, which have been realized in few real materials.

Condensation is a phase change phenomenon often encountered in nature, as well as used in industry for applications including power generation, thermal management, desalination, and environmental control. For the past eight decades, researchers have focused on creating surfaces allowing condensed droplets to be easily removed by gravity for enhanced heat transfer performance. Recent advancements in nanofabrication have enabled increased control of surface structuring for the development of superhydrophobic surfaces with even higher droplet mobility and, in some cases, coalescence-induced droplet jumping. Here, we provide a review of new insights gained to tailor superhydrophobic surfaces for enhanced condensation heat transfer considering the role of surface structure, nucleation density, droplet morphology, and droplet dynamics. Furthermore, we identify challenges and new opportunities to advance these surfaces for broad implementation in thermofluidic systems.

The phase-field method has recently emerged as a powerful computational approach to modeling and predicting mesoscale morphological and microstructure evolution in materials. It describes a microstructure using a set of conserved and nonconserved field variables that are continuous across the interfacial regions. The temporal and spatial evolution of the field variables is governed by the Cahn-Hilliard nonlinear diffusion equation and the Allen-Cahn relaxation equation. With the fundamental thermodynamic and kinetic information as the input, the phase-field method is able to predict the evolution of arbitrary morphologies and complex microstructures without explicitly tracking the positions of interfaces. This paper briefly reviews the recent advances in developing phase-field models for various materials processes including solidification, solid-state structural phase transformations, grain growth and coarsening, domain evolution in thin films, pattern formation on surfaces, dislocation microstructures, crack propagation, and electromigration.

Complex systems in condensed phases involve a multidimensional energy landscape, and knowledge of transitional structures and separation of time scales for atomic movements is critical to understanding their dynamical behavior. Here, we report, using four-dimensional (4D) femtosecond electron diffraction, the visualization of transitional structures from the initial monoclinic to the final tetragonal phase in crystalline vanadium dioxide; the change was initiated by a near-infrared excitation. By revealing the spatiotemporal behavior from all observed Bragg diffractions in 3D, the femtosecond primary vanadium-vanadium bond dilation, the displacements of atoms in picoseconds, and the sound wave shear motion on hundreds of picoseconds were resolved, elucidating the nature of the structural pathways and the nonconcerted mechanism of the transformation.

Surface amorphization provides unprecedented opportunities for altering and tuning material properties. Surface‐amorphized TiO2@graphene synthesized using a designed low temperature‐phase transformation technique exhibits significantly improved rate capability compared to well‐crystallized TiO2@graphene and bare TiO2 electrodes. These improvements facilitates lithium‐ion transport in both insertion and extraction processes and enhance electrolyte absorption capability.

The interconnection lengths between the stacked chips in three-dimensional (3D) package are a few of microns, hence the solder joints for the stacked chips joining are mainly composed by intermetallic compounds (IMCs) after reflow processes. To evaluate the phase transformation of Cu–Sn IMCs in the small interconnection joints, the Cu/Sn/Cu structures were bonded with different bonding times at various temperatures in argon gas atmosphere in this study. Scanning electron microscope and energy-dispersive X-ray were used to observe the joint interfacial microstructures and electron back scattering diffraction was used to identify the grain orientations in the joints. Scalloped Cu 6 Sn 5 grains were found to be initially formed on the Cu substrates at the early stage. A lot of small Cu 6 Sn 5 grains formed on the surfaces of the big scallop Cu 6 Sn 5 grains. Those small grains gradually grew up to merge into the big Cu 6 Sn 5 grains. With longer reflow time, the Cu 6 Sn 5 grains initiated at both side of Cu substrate continued to grow up and started to contact with each other. Meantime, the different Cu 6 Sn 5 grains with different grain orientations have merged into some bigger grains. The Cu 3 Sn grains formed between Cu 6 Sn 5 layers and Cu substrates have further developed at the expense of the depletion of Cu 6 Sn 5 . Most of columnar Cu 3 Sn grains were vertical to Cu substrate surface and their grain sizes were 1–5 μm. With 960 min at 300 °C, the pure Cu 3 Sn IMC joint has formed. The Cu 3 Sn grains in IMC joint had different grain orientations and a contact line was observed in the middle of the Cu 3 Sn IMC joint.

Major advances have been made over the past 30 years in the development of an integrated computational materials design (ICMD) technology. The hierarchical structure of its methods, tools, and supporting fundamental materials databases is reviewed here, with an emphasis on successful applications of CALPHAD (calculation of phase diagrams)-based tools as an example of ICMD, expressing mechanistic understanding in quantitative form to support science-based materials engineering. Opportunities are identified for rapid expansion of CALPHAD databases, as well as a major restructuring of materials education.

Medium carbon steels have been widely used in the fields of tool and die manufacturing due to their outstanding hardness and wear resistance. In this study, microstructures of 50# steel strips fabricated by twin roll casting (TRC) and compact strip production (CSP) processes were analyzed to investigate the influences of solidification cooling rate, rolling reduction, and coiling temperature on composition segregation, decarburization, and pearlitic phase transformation. The results show that a partial decarburization layer with a thickness of 13.3 μm and banded C-Mn segregation were observed in the 50# steel produced by CSP, leading to the banded distributions of ferrite and pearlite in the C-Mn poor regions and C-Mn rich regions, respectively. For the steel fabricated by TRC, owing to the sub-rapid solidification cooling rate and short processing time at high temperatures, neither apparent C-Mn segregation nor decarburization was observed. In addition, the steel strip fabricated by TRC has higher pearlite volume fractions, larger pearlite nodule sizes, smaller pearlite colony sizes and interlamellar spacings due to the co-influence of larger prior austenite grain size and lower coiling temperatures. The alleviated segregation, eliminated decarburization and large volume fraction of pearlite render TRC a promising process for medium carbon steel production.