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Nanometric hetero‐interfaces provide a wealth of scientific and engineering opportunities due to their complex and often misunderstood properties that can differ from their respective bulk constituents. In this work, the ability for engineered nanostructures within a bulk U─Mo alloy to arrest simulant fission products is investigated experimentally and computationally. Nanostructured 90 wt% U/ 10 wt% Mo (U‐10Mo) with 7.1 at% Nd is consolidated using spark‐plasma‐ sintering (SPS) techniques and is heat‐treated at 500 °C under vacuum for 24, 100, 500, and 1000 h. Analysis on the sintered and heat‐treated U‐10Mo reveals rapid kinetics in Nd diffusion to nanocluster sites, with evidence of Nd diffusion occurring during sintering and during the following heat‐treatment. The segregation behavior of Nd at two different U─Mo/UN interfaces is computationally verified using density functional theory (DFT) to reinforce experimental data. This work endeavors to engineer uranium mononitride (UN) nanostructures within a metallic nuclear fuel (U─Mo), in order to trap potential fission products (Nd). From consolidation of the nanostructured U─Mo powders all the way to 1000 h at reactor‐like temperatures (500 °C), Nd preferentially migrates to nanostructure boundaries (hetero‐interfaces). This technology can help prevent fuel‐cladding chemical interactions while not reducing fuel smear density within nuclear reactor cores.

Finding suitable electrode materials is one of the challenges for the commercialization of a sodium ion battery due to its pulverization accompanied by high volume expansion upon sodiation. Here, copper sulfide is suggested as a superior electrode material with high capacity, high rate, and long‐term cyclability owing to its unique conversion reaction mechanism that is pulverization‐tolerant and thus induces the capacity recovery. Such a desirable consequence comes from the combined effect among formation of stable grain boundaries, semi‐coherent boundaries, and solid‐electrolyte interphase layers. The characteristics enable high cyclic stability of a copper sulfide electrode without any need of size and morphological optimization. This work provides a key finding on high‐performance conversion reaction based electrode materials for sodium ion batteries. Pulverization‐tolerance and the capacity recovery in CuS enable its outstanding cyclic stability without any size or morphological optimization. Semi‐coherent interfaces in conversion reaction relieves sodium insertion‐induced stress by forming stable grain and phase boundaries rather than random pulverization. Generated grain boundaries enlarge active surface area for sodium insertion and extraction for the capacity recovery.

Sodium metal batteries are emerging as promising energy storage technologies owing to their high-energy density and rich resources. However, the challenge of achieving continuous operation at high areal capacity hinders the application of this system. Here, a robust two-dimensional tin/sodium–tin alloy interface was introduced onto an Al substrate as an anode via an industrial electroplating strategy. Unlike the widely accepted in situ formation of Na 15 Sn 4 alloys, the formation of Na 9 Sn 4 alloys results in a semi-coherent interface with sodium due to low lattice mismatch (20.84%), which alleviates the lattice stress of sodium deposition and induces subsequent dense sodium deposition under high areal capacity. In addition, the strong interaction of Sn with anions allows more PF 6 − to preferentially participate in the interfacial solvation structure, thereby facilitating the formation of a thin (10 nm) NaF-rich solid electrolyte interface. Therefore, the substrate can withstand a high areal capacity of 5 mA h cm −2 , exhibiting a high average Coulombic efficiency of 99.7%. The full battery exhibits long-term cycling performance (600 cycles) with a low decay rate of 0.0018% per cycle at 60 mA g −1 .

In article number 1900264, Jong Min Yuk and co‐workers visualize four types of semi‐coherent boundaries formed during sodiation in copper sulfide utilizing high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy. The semi‐coherent boundaries do not only act as mechanical pillars for pulverization‐tolerance, but also provide additional sodium transport paths for capacity recovery. The novel sodiation mechanism enables exceptionally stable sodium storage in copper sulfide.

Misfit dislocations are formed at a two-phase interface to reduce and even diminish coherency stress in the region far from the interface. Such semi-coherent interfaces are key structural features in a wide range of engineering materials. Burgers vectors of misfit dislocations are defined with the reference lattice named as commensurate dichromatic pattern (CDP) in the topological model. The CDP is not a geometrical average of boundary units as historically used in many examples. In this work, based on the Green’s function and theory of dislocations, both the mechanical effects of interfacial dislocation arrays and coherency strains due to geometry match at the interface are considered to get the CDP. We demonstrated that the mismatch and twist partitioning at a CDP are unequally partitioned in the two adjacent crystals, which only depends on elastic properties of the two crystals regardless of characters of misfit dislocations. Correspondingly, the method to determine the CDP of a two-phase interface in bi-crystal is developed. Graphic abstract

The interface between dispersed compound nanoprecipitates and metal substrates can act as effective hydrogen traps, impeding hydrogen diffusion and accumulation, thus mitigating the risk of hydrogen embrittlement and hydrogen-induced coating failure. In this study, we considered the precipitation of vanadium carbide (VC) and vanadium nitride (VN) nanoprecipitates on a body-centered cubic Fe (α-Fe) substrate in the Kurdjumov–Sachs (K–S) orientation relationship. To evaluate the stability and hydrogen trapping ability of the interface, we used the first-principles method to calculate the interfacial binding energy and hydrogen solution energy. The results show that the stability of the interface was related to the type and length of bonding between atoms at the interface. The interface zone and the interface-like Fe zone have the best hydrogen trapping effect. We found that hydrogen adsorption strength depends on both the Voronoi volume and the number of coordinating atoms. A larger Voronoi volume and smaller coordination number are beneficial for hydrogen capture. When a single vacancy exists around the interface region, the harder it is to form a vacancy, and the more unstable the interface becomes. In addition to the C vacancy at the Baker–Nutting relationship interface found in previous studies being a deep hydrogen trap, the Fe and V vacancies at the α-Fe/VC interface and the V and N vacancies at the α-Fe/VN interface in the K–S relationship also show deep hydrogen capture ability.

The traditional Ag nanowire preparation means that it cannot meet the demanding requirements of photoelectrochemical devices due to the undesirable conductivity, difficulty in compounding, and poor heat resistance. Here, we prepared an Ag nanonetwork with superior properties using a special template method based on electrospinning technology. The transparent conductive films based on Ag nanonetworks have good transmittance in a wide range from ultraviolet to visible. It is important that the films have high operability and are easy to be compounded with other materials. After compounding with high-melting-point W metal, the heat-resistance temperature of the W/Ag composite transparent conductive films is increased by 100 °C to 460 °C, and the light transmission and electrical conductivity of the films are not significantly affected. All experimental phenomena in the study are analyzed theoretically. This research can provide an important idea for the metal nanowire electrode, which is difficult to be applied to the photoelectrochemical devices.

A prominent strengthened Y2O3 stabilized t-ZrO2 (YSTZ)/MgO nanocomposite coating is achieved by the plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) process and in-situ synthesized YSTZ reinforced phase with a quantitative control approach. The idea of activating double slip systemic semi-coherent interface dislocations in YSTZ/MgO nanocomposite coating to realize crack self-healing is proposed. High dislocation densities are associated with {101} < 101> YSTZ slip and {111} < 101> MgO slip system to coordinate interfacial deformation to stop crack initiation and propagation. This crack propagation path can absorb more fracture energy, providing more opportunities for crack deflection and bridge, which closes crack and realizes crack self-healing.

A prominent strengthened Y 2 O 3 stabilized t-ZrO 2 (YSTZ)/MgO nanocomposite coating is achieved by the plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) process and in-situ synthesized YSTZ reinforced phase with a quantitative control approach. The idea of activating double slip systemic semi-coherent interface dislocations in YSTZ/MgO nanocomposite coating to realize crack self-healing is proposed. High dislocation densities are associated with {101} < 101> YSTZ slip and {111} < 101> MgO slip system to coordinate interfacial deformation to stop crack initiation and propagation. This crack propagation path can absorb more fracture energy, providing more opportunities for crack deflection and bridge, which closes crack and realizes crack self-healing. This paper reveals semi-coherent interface dislocation of double slip systems in nanocomposite coating stop crack initiation and propagation is proposed to realize crack self-healing.