Volume 10, Issue 7

July 2026

Browse Issues:

HIGHLIGHTED ARTICLES

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Charge-to-spin conversion in epitaxial and polycrystalline Bi and Bi/Ag layers

Federica Nasr, Emir Karadža, Santos F. Alvarado, Federico Binda, Tobias Goldenberger, Carlo Zucchetti, Myriam H. Aguirre, Paolo Moras, Andrey V. Matetskiy, Polina M. Sheverdyaeva, Paul Noël, and Pietro Gambardella

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074406 (2026) - Published 9 July, 2026

Bismuth is a promising spin current generator owing to its strong spin–orbit coupling, spin-polarized surface states, and large intrinsic spin Hall conductivity predicted by theory. Yet experimental reports of spin–charge interconversion efficiencies remain remarkably inconsistent. The authors compare structural, spectroscopic, and spin–orbit torque measurements of epitaxial and polycrystalline Bi layers in combination with different metal spacers and ferromagnets. The results reveal extensive interdiffusion and dewetting unless Ag overlayers are used to preserve the structural and chemical integrity of Bi, unlocking a giant bulk spin Hall angle exceeding unity and highlighting the potential of Bi for spintronic applications.

LETTERS

Magnetic, ferroelectric, and multiferroic materials

LETTER

Dynamical crossover between stretched- and compressed-exponential relaxation in a photoexcited crystal

Tyler Carbin, Joel Herman, Xinshu Zhang, Adrian B. Culver, Yu Zhang, Hengdi Zhao, Rahul Roy, Gang Cao, and Anshul Kogar

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, L071401 (2026) - Published 6 July, 2026

Soft, molecular, and amorphous materials

LETTER

Electrically reconfigurable topology in three-phase nematic emulsions

Saikat Das, Seyed Reza Seyednejad, Simon Čopar, and Surajit Dhara

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, L072601 (2026) - Published 13 July, 2026

ARTICLES

Crystal growth, crystallization, and kinetics

Thermomigration of AuGe nanodroplets on atomically flat Ge(111) terraces

Nayef Abu Dahech, Frédéric Leroy, Pierre Müller, Fabien Cheynis, and Stefano Curiotto

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 073401 (2026) - Published 10 July, 2026

Synthesis and defect control of ${Sr}_{2} {IrO}_{4}$ films by reactive sputtering

Ksenia S. Rabinovich, Olfat Omareya, Tim Priessnitz, Maisam Abdallah, Kathrin Küster, Iyad Saadeddin, Zafer Hawash, Muayad Abu Saa, Bernhard Keimer, and Gideok Kim

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 073402 (2026) - Published 17 August, 2026

Structural and mechanical properties

Connecting lattice compatibility conditions to transformation energy barriers in shape memory materials

Owen Rettenmaier, Srikanth Patala, and Christopher A. Schuh

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 073601 (2026) - Published 6 July, 2026

Interpretable machine-learning models for predicting elasticity and ductility of inorganic materials

Yanmiao Han, Zheng Pan, and Rundong Zhao

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 073602 (2026) - Published 7 July, 2026

Stoichiometry dependent properties of cerium hydride: An active learning developed interatomic potential study

Brenden W. Hamilton, Travis E. Jones, Timothy C. Germann, and Benjamin T. Nebgen

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 073603 (2026) - Published 20 July, 2026

Nanomechanics of liquid-quench-derived nanoporous amorphous carbon using ReaxFF molecular dynamics

M. A. Busaidi, M. Kowalik, A. C. T. van Duin, and T. Dumitrică

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 073604 (2026) - Published 20 July, 2026

Thermodynamics and phase stability of the AlTiCrMoW high-entropy alloy simulated using machine-learned interatomic potentials

Joseph E. Arnold, Christopher D. Woodgate, Roohollah Hafizi, Matthew J. Harris, Alessandro Mottura, Gonzalo García Fuentes, and Beñat Gurrutxaga-Lerma

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 073605 (2026) - Published 21 July, 2026

Temperature-dependent elastic properties of $U_{3} {Si}_{2}$ from $DFT + U$ calculations: Reconciling anisotropy with experimental measurements

Edoardo Brando, Aloïs Castellano, Xiaofeng Guo, Marjorie Bertolus, and Johann Bouchet

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 073606 (2026) - Published 14 August, 2026

Development of new methods for materials

Transferable machine learning potential for modeling uranium nitrides across stoichiometries

Fuzhu Liu, Rui Song, Ruizhi Qiu, Xiangdong Ding, and Jun Sun

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 073801 (2026) - Published 9 July, 2026

Benchmarking chemically scalable machine-learning interatomic potentials for large-scale simulations of multicomponent alloys

Fei Shuang, Penghua Ying, Kai Liu, Zixiong Wei, Fengxian Liu, Zheyong Fan, Minqiang Jiang, and Poulumi Dey

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 073802 (2026) - Published 15 July, 2026

Efficient hybrid density functional calculations for solids with a local basis set

Giacomo Ambrogio, Jacques K. Desmarais, and Alessandro Erba

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 073803 (2026) - Published 20 July, 2026

Direct orientation contrast imaging of antiphase domains on III-V materials using scanning electron microscopy

Brieg Le Corre, Clothilde Grenèche, Rozenn Bernard, Tony Rohel, Antoine Létoublon, Wijden Khelifi, Julie Le Pouliquen, Arnaud Grisard, Sylvain Combrié, Bruno Gérard, Abdelmounaim Harouri, Luc Le Gratiet, Grégoire Beaudoin, Konstantinos Pantzas, Isabelle Sagnes, Oliver Skibitzki, Gilles Patriarche, Charles Cornet, and Yoan Léger

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 073804 (2026) - Published 20 July, 2026

Optimal conditions for detecting optical dichroism at the nanoscale by electron energy-loss spectroscopy

Marek Zálešák, Martin Ošmera, Martin Hrtoň, and Andrea Konečná

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 073805 (2026) - Published 22 July, 2026

Probing chirality below the diffraction limit is vital for understanding biological processes and designing chiral nanostructures. While orbital angular momentum (OAM)-resolved electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) is a promising candidate for detecting nanoscale circular dichroism, experimental results remain elusive. This study presents a theoretical framework for understanding and optimizing the dichroic signal using a prototypical chiral nanostructure – a plasmonic nanohelix. By analyzing the role of various parameters, we demonstrate that the dichroism in EELS is sensitive to topological charge transfer, electron energy and sample geometry yet robust against minor experimental misalignments. These insights provide a roadmap for future nanoscale dichroism measurements.

Uncertainty-aware multi-source modeling for materials property prediction: A case study in ferroelectrics

Bo Wang, Yuehui Xian, Yumei Zhou, Dezhen Xue, and Yangyang Xu

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 073806 (2026) - Published 29 July, 2026

Two-dimensional materials

Superconductivity, magnetism, and directional plasmonic modes in two-dimensional penta-bipyramid boron allotropes

L. Niu, O. J. Conquest, H. Ma, C. Verdi, and C. Stampfl

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074001 (2026) - Published 6 July, 2026

High temperature photoconductivity of 2D layers of ${MoS}_{2}$

Dushmantha Gusthigngnhadurage, Robinson Karunanithy, Praveena Satkunam, Poopalasingam Sivakumar, and Saikat Talapatra

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074002 (2026) - Published 6 July, 2026

Phonon transport in 1T and $1 H − {NiTe}_{2}$ under the dominance of anharmonicity and electron-phonon coupling

Xue Cheng, Guangwu Zhang, Ziman Wang, and Xinyu Wang

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074003 (2026) - Published 15 July, 2026

Emergent antiferromagnetism and Mott proximity in BaF electride bilayer

Dmitry Y. Novoselov and Zaur Z. Isaev

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074004 (2026) - Published 20 July, 2026

Enhancement of topological magnon-driven spin currents through local edge strain in ${CrI}_{3}$ nanoribbons

David Sanz Ruiz and David Soriano

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074005 (2026) - Published 21 July, 2026

Topological and Dirac materials

Anomalous transverse response in nodal line semimetal ${Mn}_{3} SnC$

Sunil Gangwar and C. S. Yadav

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074201 (2026) - Published 10 July, 2026

Monolayer ${MnBi}_{2} {Te}_{4}$ : Atomic-scale insights into the 2D limit of an antiferromagnetic topological insulator

Wilber Alfaro Castro, Alexander LaFleur, Muxian Xu, Hengxin Tan, Zumeng Huang, Vsevolod Belosevich, Thomas Siyuan Ding, Qiong Ma, Binghai Yan, and Ilija Zeljkovic

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074202 (2026) - Published 27 July, 2026

Magnetic, ferroelectric, and multiferroic materials

Switching of an easy plane antiferromagnetic insulator with a sub-nanosecond electrical current pulse

Justin J. Michel, Jose Flores, and Fengyuan Yang

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074401 (2026) - Published 1 July, 2026

Metallicity and eight-fold magnetic anisotropy of ${SrRuO}_{3}$ under the single-layer limit

Zhixiong Deng, Junhua Liu, Chenghe Liu, Qinghua Zhang, Runze Yao, Yulong Wang, Wen Xiao, Zhan Yang, Kai Chen, Yulin Gan, Jiandi Zhang, and Zhaoliang Liao

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074402 (2026) - Published 6 July, 2026

Emergent ferroelectric order in strained ${KTaO}_{3}$ by anharmonic and machine learned force fields methods

Yu Zhu, Luigi Ranalli, Taikang Chen, Wei Ren, and Cesare Franchini

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074403 (2026) - Published 6 July, 2026

Structural and magnetic properties of epitaxial $M n_{3} Ga$ thin films

Quanzheng Tao, Andrejs Petruhins, Rui Shu, Alexis Papamichail, Iurii Kibalin, Bachir Ouladdiaf, Fabio Orlandi, Dmitry Khalyavin, Pascal Manuel, Vanya Darakchieva, Johanna Rosen, and Andrew T. Boothroyd

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074404 (2026) - Published 9 July, 2026

Multifunctional properties of manganese pnictides: A first-principles study on magneto-optics and magnetocaloric properties

S. Jayendran, K. G. Abhishek, R. Suresh, Helmer Fjellvåg, and P. Ravindran

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074405 (2026) - Published 9 July, 2026

EDITORS' SUGGESTION

Charge-to-spin conversion in epitaxial and polycrystalline Bi and Bi/Ag layers

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074406 (2026) - Published 9 July, 2026

Temperature-invariant magneto-optical Kerr effect in noncollinear antiferromagnet

Camron Farhang, Weihang Lu, Yuchuan Yao, Pratap Pal, Shaofeng Han, Jian-Guo Zheng, Hua Chen, Chang-Beom Eom, and Jing Xia

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074407 (2026) - Published 16 July, 2026

Mapping metastable magnetic textures in ${({Fe}_{0.5} {Co}_{0.5})}_{5} {GeTe}_{2}$ with in situ Lorentz transmission electron microscopy

Reed Yalisove, Hongrui Zhang, Xiang Chen, Fanhao Meng, Jie Yao, Robert Birgeneau, Ramamoorthy Ramesh, and Mary C. Scott

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074408 (2026) - Published 16 July, 2026

Proton-induced unusual valence-state variations and electronic structures in double perovskite ${La}_{2} {NiMnO}_{6}$ films via ionic liquid gating

Xiuyi Ma, Yiman Su, Shidi Mo, Huiqiang Liu, Hui Zeng, Weinan Lin, Meng Wu, Hui-Qiong Wang, and Junyong Kang

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074409 (2026) - Published 20 July, 2026

Ferrimagnetic order in tetragonal antiperovskite ${Mn}_{3} GeN$

Shaun O’Donnell, Corlyn Regier, Sharad Mahatara, H. Cein Mandujano, Efrain E. Rodriguez, Danielle R. Yahne, Stephan Lany, Sage R. Bauers, Rebecca W. Smaha, and James R. Neilson

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074410 (2026) - Published 20 July, 2026

Valley polarization and anomalous valley Hall effect in double-transition-metal MXene ${HfCr}_{2} C_{2} H_{2}$

Longjun Li, Qianwei Wang, Mengqiu Long, Mengqiu Cai, Yu-Qing Zhao, Biao Liu, and Junliang Yang

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074411 (2026) - Published 20 July, 2026

Collinear spin density wave state in distorted square-lattice ${GdNiSn}_{4}$

Charles C. Tam, Sarah Schwarz, Xin Zhang, Sudipta Chatterjee, Scott B. Lee, Rebecca Scatena, Leslie M. Schoop, and Stephen D. Wilson

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074412 (2026) - Published 21 July, 2026

Signatures of bulk g-wave altermagnetism in optically excited $α − MnTe$

Luca Felipe Haag, Marius Weber, Kai Leckron, Libor Šmejkal, Jairo Sinova, and Hans Christian Schneider

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074413 (2026) - Published 22 July, 2026

Excitation by linearly polarized femtosecond laser pulses provides a direct view into the altermagnetic structure via the non-equilibrium spin-polarized electronic populations in a band structure whose symmetry encodes the underlying bulk g-wave order. The spin-dependent electronic response calculated in this paper can be accessed by optical pump-probe experiments. The authors show that, surprisingly, such a purely optical technique reveals planar d-wave- and g-wave-like signatures hidden within the three-dimensional bulk g-wave spin-order configuration. Crucially, the symmetry properties of the calculated response can be well approximated by using two-dimensional “spin cuts”, which enable a transparent interpretation of the optical response and motivate concrete magneto-optical pump-probe configurations for bulk altermagnets.

Learning magnetic order classification from large-scale materials databases

Ahmed E. Fahmy

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074414 (2026) - Published 30 July, 2026

Nodal-line-enhanced quantum geometric effects: Anomalous and nonlinear Hall effects in the parity-mixed antiferromagnet NbMnP

Ibuki Terada, Vu Thi Ngoc Huyen, Yuki Yanagi, and Michi-To Suzuki

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074415 (2026) - Published 30 July, 2026

Microscopic origin of piezomagnetism in ${Mn}_{3} Sn$ : A dual real- and $k$ -space picture

Soichiro Kikuchi, Yuki Yanagi, Thi Ngoc Huyen Vu, and Michi-To Suzuki

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074416 (2026) - Published 30 July, 2026

Structural and magnetic properties of ${Co}_{4} N$ thin films stabilized with Pd doping

Akshaya A., Mukul Gupta, Aman Agrahari, Rohit Medwal, Akhil Tayal, Andrei Gloskovskii, and Jochen Stahn

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074417 (2026) - Published 31 July, 2026

Structural distortions and ferroelectricity in antiperovskite oxides with tetrel elements

He Zhu and Turan Birol

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074418 (2026) - Published 14 August, 2026

Ab initio study of magnetism in pristine and defective ${MnBi}_{2} {Te}_{4}$

Ana Beatriz Pedro Fontes, Jiaqi Zhou, Simon M.-M. Dubois, and Jean-Christophe Charlier

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074419 (2026) - Published 17 August, 2026

Exploring magnetoelectric effects in $1 T − {FeCl}_{2} / bilayer − GaSe$ multiferroic heterostructures

Fahmida Fakhera, Oliver J. Conquest, Carla Verdi, and Catherine Stampfl

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074420 (2026) - Published 19 August, 2026

Epitaxial stabilization of magnetic GdAuSb/LaAuSb superlattices

Patrick J. Strohbeen, Soohyun Im, Tamalika Samanta, Zachary LaDuca, Dongxue Du, Estiaque H. Shourov, Jessica L. McChesney, Fanny Rodolakis, Paul M. Voyles, and Jason K. Kawasaki

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074421 (2026) - Published 19 August, 2026

Semiconducting materials

Quantitative framework for photoemissive materials: From bialkali-antimonide synthesis to performance in superconducting RF electron injectors

Jonas Dube, Chen Wang, Emily Jayne Brookes, Axel Neumann, Guido Klemz, Ezgi Ergenlik, Pablo Echevarria, Andriy Ushakov, Thorsten Kamps, and Julius Kühn

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074601 (2026) - Published 10 July, 2026

Thermodynamic and electronic properties of rutile ${Sn}_{1 - x} {Ge}_{x} O_{2}$ alloys from first principles

Yann L. Müller, Alp Umut Kurbay, Xiao Zhang, Emmanouil Kioupakis, and Anirudh Raju Natarajan

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074602 (2026) - Published 27 July, 2026

Analysis of phonon decay processes in corundum structured $α − {In}_{2} O_{3}$ and $α − {Al}_{2} O_{3}$ by temperature dependent Raman spectroscopy

Elias Kluth, Josephin E. Müller, Rüdiger Goldhahn, Akito Taguchi, Tomohiro Yamaguchi, and Martin Feneberg

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074603 (2026) - Published 31 July, 2026

Superconducting materials

Two-step molecular beam epitaxy growth of superconducting monolayer FeSe film on ${SrTiO}_{3}$

Jie Liu, Yuxuan Lei, Zhuoran Xu, Rao Li, Junhao Lin, Yi Liu, Yanzhao Liu, and Jian Wang

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074801 (2026) - Published 13 July, 2026

Fabrication of oxide/FeSe multilayer films using pulsed laser deposition

Tomoki Kobayashi, Hiroki Nakagawa, Ryo Ogawa, and Atsutaka Maeda

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074802 (2026) - Published 27 July, 2026

Thickness-driven structural evolution and vacancy-linked superconductivity in epitaxial NbN thin films

A. Farhadizadeh, S. Sengupta, M. Monteverde, K. C. Kwick, J. Salamania, R. Boyd, and M. Odén

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074803 (2026) - Published 31 July, 2026

Superconductivity in the transition metal silicide ${Zr}_{2} {Ru}_{3} {Si}_{4}$ single crystals

D. Y. Yan, H. X. Liu, X. Han, C. W. Zhang, and Y. G. Shi

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 074804 (2026) - Published 19 August, 2026

Metamaterials, optical, photonic, and plasmonic materials

Modeling broad-spectrum response of hierarchical photonic materials: Development and comparison of radiative transfer methods

Sang Eon Han, Jennifer A. McGuire, Calib D. Lanier, Sang M. Han, Victor Breedveld, Michael A. Filler, and Vinothan N. Manoharan

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 075201 (2026) - Published 16 July, 2026

Spin-pumping in Pt/Py heterostructures: The role of Al spacer layers

Verena Ney, Kilian Lenz, Fabrice Wilhelm, René Hübner, Fabian Ganss, Robert Freynschlag, Jürgen Lindner, Andrei Rogalev, and Andreas Ney

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 075202 (2026) - Published 17 August, 2026

Materials for energy harvesting, storage, and generation

First-principles analysis of the effect of magnetic states on the oxygen vacancy formation energy in doped ${La}_{0.5} {Sr}_{0.5} {CoO}_{3}$ perovskite

Wei Wei, Florian Fuchs, Andreas Zienert, Xiao Hu, and Jörg Schuster

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 075401 (2026) - Published 18 August, 2026

DFT-based grand canonical study of the stability of crystalline battery materials under operating conditions

Johannes Döhn and Axel Groß

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 075402 (2026) - Published 20 August, 2026

The stability of functional materials under operating conditions is of great importance in the search for materials with improved properties. This is in particular true for battery materials which have to operate robustly and safely under strongly varying electrochemical conditions. In this study, the authors demonstrate how a grand-canonical approach coupled to first-principles electronic structure calculations can predict the stability of chloride perovskites for Cl-ion batteries under operating conditions. This approach allows to determine whether the studied materials can be used as potential electrodes or solid-electrolytes or whether they are not appropriate for battery applications, thus contributing to an accelerated materials design.

Soft, molecular, and amorphous materials

Construction of amorphous structure models via relaxation of random arrangements of molecules

Jarod Worden, Eric Cockayne, and Kevin F. Garrity

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 075601 (2026) - Published 9 July, 2026

Icosahedral short-range order suppresses thermal expansion in metallic glasses

Hajar Boutnala, Hayat Haouas, Achraf Atila, and Abdellatif Hasnaoui

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 075602 (2026) - Published 15 July, 2026

Materials for catalysis and electrochemistry

Oxygen-vacancy-induced heterogeneous strain domains and dynamics on reducible oxide surfaces

Piyush Haluai, Tara M. Boland, and Peter A. Crozier

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 075801 (2026) - Published 7 July, 2026

Surface oxygen vacancies in ceria (CeO $_{2}$ ) appear as centers of extended strain fields reaching up to the nanoscale in the cation sublattice. Using transmission electron microscopy combined with density functional theory , the authors reveal highly heterogeneous (alternating tensile/compressive) and dynamic strain (high degree of fluxionality) landscapes, with both stable and unstable vacancies coexisting within a few atomic spacings. These findings characterize the structural footprint of surface defects and highlight the critical role of fluxional strain in governing cation functionality.

Theory of ultrafast conductance modulation in electrochemical protonic synapses by multiphase polarization

Michael L. Li, Dingyu Shen, Jesus A. del Alamo, and Martin Z. Bazant

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 075802 (2026) - Published 19 August, 2026

Recent advances in protonic electrochemical random-access memory (ECRAM) have demonstrated ultrafast, nanosecond switching dynamics, seemingly faster than diffusion. We develop a theory to explain how these devices outperform some counterparts by up to five orders of magnitude by leveraging multiphase polarization in tungsten oxide, which can be tuned during annealing of the material. Supported by simulations, the theory shows that high-concentration metallic phases formed electrochemically along the gate enable the conductance to be modulated linearly and symmetrically throughout the ultrafast switching protocols.

Nanomaterials

Contact angle selection and the related crystal phase of vapor-liquid-solid III-V ternary nanowires

Vladimir G. Dubrovskii

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 076001 (2026) - Published 7 July, 2026