Nature, Published online: 23 November 2019; doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1810-2
Author Correction: Chimeric peptidomimetic antibiotics against Gram-negative bacteria

Nature, Published online: 22 November 2019; doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1757-3
Author Correction: Light-entrained and brain-tuned circadian circuits regulate ILC3s and gut homeostasis

A typical laser-plasma accelerator (LPA) is driven by a single, ultrarelativistic laser pulse from terawatt- or petawatt-class lasers. Recently, there has been some theoretical work on the use of copropagating two-color laser pulses (CTLP) for LPA research. Here, we demonstrate the first LPA driven by CTLP where we observed substantial electron energy enhancements. Those results have been further confirmed in a practical application, where the electrons are used in a bremsstrahlung-based positron generation configuration, which led to a considerable boost in the positron energy as well. Numerical simulations suggest that the trailing second harmonic relativistic laser pulse is capable of sustaining the acceleration structure for much longer distances after the preceding fundamental pulse is depleted in the plasma. Therefore, our work confirms the merits of driving LPAs by two-color pulses and paves the way toward a downsizing of LPAs, making their potential applications in science and ..

Modeling many-body quantum systems with strong interactions is one of the core challenges of modern physics. A range of methods has been developed to approach this task, each with its own idiosyncrasies, approximations, and realm of applicability. However, there remain many problems that are intractable for existing methods. In particular, many approaches face a huge computational barrier when modeling large numbers of coupled electrons and ions at finite temperature. Here, we address this shortfall with a new approach to modeling many-body quantum systems. On the basis of the Bohmian trajectory formalism, our new method treats the full particle dynamics with a considerable increase in computational speed. As a result, we are able to perform large-scale simulations of coupled electron-ion systems without using the adiabatic Born-Oppenheimer approximation.

Design of bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) with excellent properties has been a long-sought goal in materials science and engineering. The grand challenge has been scaling up the size and improving the properties of metallic glasses of technological importance. In this work, we demonstrate a facile, flexible route to synthesize BMGs and metallic glass-glass composites out of metallic-glass ribbons. By fully activating atomic-scale stress relaxation within an ultrathin surface layer under ultrasonic vibrations, we accelerate the formation of atomic bonding between ribbons at a temperature far below the glass transition point. In principle, our approach overcomes the size and compositional limitations facing traditional methods, leading to the rapid bonding of metallic glasses of distinct physical properties without causing crystallization. The outcome of our current research opens up a window not only to synthesize BMGs of extended compositions, but also toward the discovery of multifunctio..

Although monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have direct bandgaps, the low room-temperature photoluminescence quantum yields (QYs), especially under high pump intensity, limit their practical applications. Here, we use a simple photoactivation method to enhance the room-temperature QYs of monolayer MoS2 grown on to silica micro/nanofibers by more than two orders of magnitude in a wide pump dynamic range. The high-density oxygen dangling bonds released from the tapered micro/nanofiber surface are the key to this strong enhancement of QYs. As the pump intensity increases from 10–1 to 104 W cm–2, our photoactivated monolayer MoS2 exhibits QYs from ~30 to 1% while maintaining high environmental stability, allowing direct lasing with greatly reduced thresholds down to 5 W cm–2. Our strategy can be extended to other TMDs and offers a solution to the most challenging problem toward the realization of efficient and stable light emitters at room temperature based on these atomical..

Identifying key players in coupled individual systems is a fundamental problem in network theory. We investigate synchronizable network-coupled dynamical systems such as high-voltage electric power grids and coupled oscillators on complex networks. We define key players as nodes that, once perturbed, generate the largest excursion away from synchrony. A spectral decomposition of the coupling matrix gives an elegant solution to this identification problem. We show that, when the coupling matrix is Laplacian, key players are peripheral in the sense of a centrality measure defined from effective resistance distances. For linearly coupled systems, the ranking is efficiently obtained through a single Laplacian matrix inversion, regardless of the operational synchronous state. The resulting ranking index is termed LRank. When nonlinearities are present, a weighted Laplacian matrix inversion gives another ranking index, WLRank. LRank provides a faithful ranking even for well-developed nonline..

Two-dimensional synthetic polymers (2DSPs) are sheet-like macromolecules consisting of covalently linked repeat units in two directions. Access to 2DSPs with controlled size and shape and diverse functionality has been limited because of the need for monomers to retain their crystallinity throughout polymerization. Here, we describe a synthetic strategy for 2DSPs that obviates the need for crystallinity, via the free radical copolymerization of amphiphilic gemini monomers and their monomeric derivatives arranged in a bilayer at solid-liquid interfaces. The ease of this strategy allowed the preparation of 2DSPs with well-controlled size and shape and diverse functionality on solid templates composed of various materials with wide-ranging surface curvatures and dimensions. The resulting 2DSPs showed remarkable mechanical strength and have multiple applications, such as nanolithographic resist and antibacterial agent. The broad scope of this approach markedly expands the chemistry, morpho..

The valence self-regulation of sulfur from the “–2” valence state in thiols to the “–1” valence state in hydroxylated thiolates has been accomplished using the Pt1Ag28 nanocluster as a platform—the first time that the “–1” valent sulfur has been detected as S–1. Two previously unknown nanoclusters, Pt1Ag28(SR)20 and Pt1Ag28(SR)18(HO-SR)2 (where SR represents 2-adamantanethiol), have been synthesized and characterized—in the latter nanocluster, the presence of hydroxyl induces the valence regulation of two special S atoms from “–2” (in SR) to “–1” valence state in the HO-S(Ag)R. Because of the contrasting nature of the capping ligands in these two nanoclusters [i.e., only SR in Pt1Ag28(SR)20 or both SR- and HO-SR- in Pt1Ag28(SR)18(HO-SR)2], they exhibit differing shell architectures, even though their cores (Pt1Ag12) are in the same icosahedral configuration. Single-crystal x-ray diffraction analysis revealed their 1:1 cocrystallization, and mass spectrometry verified the presence of hy..

Direct full-color photodetectors without sophisticated color filters and interferometric optics have attracted considerable attention for widespread applications. However, difficulties of combining various multispectral semiconductors and improving photon transfer efficiency for high-performance optoelectronic devices have impeded the translation of these platforms into practical realization. Here, we report a low-temperature (<150°C) fabricated two-dimensionally pixelized full-color photodetector by using monolithic integration of various-sized colloidal quantum dots (QDs) and amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide semiconductors. By introducing trap-reduced chelating chalcometallate ligands, highly efficient charge carrier transport and photoresistor-free fine-patterning of QD layers were successfully realized, exhibiting extremely high photodetectivity (>4.2 x 1017 Jones) and photoresponsivity (>8.3 x 103 A W–1) in a broad range of wavelengths (365 to 1310 nm). On the basis of these te..