All-temperature barocaloric effects at pressure-induced phase transitions

Zhao, X.*; Zhang, Z.*; Hattori, Takanori; Wang, J.*; Li, L.*; Jia, Y.*; Li, W.*; Xue, J.*; Fan, X.*; Song, R.*; et al.

Nature Communications (Internet), 16, p.7713_1 - 7713_8, 2025/08

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63068-z

Caloric effects usually occur in the vicinity of solid-state phase transitions with a limited refrigeration temperature span. Here, we introduce and realize an unprecedented concept -all temperature barocaloric effect, i.e., a remarkable barocaloric effect in KPF across an exceptionally wide temperature span, from 77.5 to 300 K and potentially down to 4 K, covering typical room temperature, liquid nitrogen, liquid hydrogen, and liquid helium refrigeration regions. The directly measured barocaloric adiabatic temperature change reaches 12 K at room temperature and 2.5 K at 77.5 K upon the release of a 250 MPa pressure. This effect is attributed to a persistent phase transition to a rhombohedral high pressure phases. We depict the thermodynamic energy landscape to account for the structural instability. This unique all-temperature barocaloric effect presents a novel approach to highly applicable solid-state refrigeration technology, transcending the conventional multi-stage scenario.

The Influence of structural dynamics in two-dimensional hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites on their photoluminescence efficiency; Neutron scattering analysis

Rajeev, H. S.*; Hu, X.*; Chen, W.-L.*; Zhang, D.*; Chen, T.*; Kofu, Maiko*; Kajimoto, Ryoichi; Nakamura, Mitsutaka; Chen, A. Z.*; Johnson, G. C.*; et al.

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 94(3), p.034602_1 - 034602_14, 2025/03

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSJ.94.034602

Strong low-energy rattling modes enabled liquid-like ultralow thermal conductivity in a well-ordered solid

Liu, P.-F.*; Li, X.*; Li, J.*; Zhu, J.*; Tong, Z.*; Kofu, Maiko*; Nirei, Masami; Xu, J.*; Yin, W.*; Wang, F.*; et al.

National Science Review, 11(12), p.nwae216_1 - nwae216_10, 2024/12

https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwae216

Dual nanoprecipitation and nanoscale chemical heterogeneity in a secondary hardening steel for ultrahigh strength and large uniform elongation

Wang, S.*; Wang, J.*; Zhang, S.*; Wei, D.*; Chen, Y.*; Rong, X.*; Gong, W.; Harjo, S.; Liu, X.*; Jiao, Z.*; et al.

Journal of Materials Science & Technology, 185, p.245 - 258, 2024/06

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmst.2023.10.048

Development of an Fe complex exhibiting intermolecular proton shifting coupled spin transition

Ji, T.*; Su, S.*; Wu, S.*; Hori, Yuta*; Shigeta, Yasuteru*; Huang, Y.*; Zheng, W.*; Xu, W.*; Zhang, X.*; Kiyanagi, Ryoji; et al.

Angewandte Chemie; International Edition, 63(25), p.e202404843_1 - e202404843_6, 2024/04

https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202404843

Probing deformation behavior of a refractory high-entropy alloy using neutron diffraction

Zhou, Y.*; Song, W.*; Zhang, F.*; Wu, Y.*; Lei, Z.*; Jiao, M.*; Zhang, X.*; Dong, J.*; Zhang, Y.*; Yang, M.*; et al.

Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 971, p.172635_1 - 172635_7, 2024/01

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2023.172635

Direct observation of topological magnon polarons in a multiferroic material

Bao, S.*; Gu, Z.-L.*; Shangguan, Y.*; Huang, Z.*; Liao, J.*; Zhao, X.*; Zhang, B.*; Dong, Z.-Y.*; Wang, W.*; Kajimoto, Ryoichi; et al.

Nature Communications (Internet), 14, p.6093_1 - 6093_9, 2023/09

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41791-9

A One-third magnetization plateau phase as evidence for the Kitaev interaction in a honeycomb-lattice antiferromagnet

Shangguan, Y.*; Bao, S.*; Dong, Z.-Y.*; Xi, N.*; Gao, Y.-P.*; Ma, Z.*; Wang, W.*; Qi, Z.*; Zhang, S.*; Huang, Z.*; et al.

Nature Physics, 19(12), p.1883 - 1889, 2023/09

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-023-02212-2

A Large-scale particle-based simulation of heat and mass transfer behavior in EAGLE ID1 in-pile test

Zhang, T.*; Yao, Y.*; Morita, Koji*; Liu, X.*; Liu, W.*; Imaizumi, Yuya; Kamiyama, Kenji

Proceedings of 30th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE30) (Internet), 9 Pages, 2023/05

Grain refinement in titanium prevents low temperature oxygen embrittlement

Chong, Y.*; Gholizadeh, R.*; Tsuru, Tomohito; Zhang, R.*; Inoue, Koji*; Gao, W.*; Godfrey, A.*; Mitsuhara, Masatoshi*; Morris, J. W. Jr.*; Minor, A. M.*; et al.

Nature Communications (Internet), 14, p.404_1 - 404_11, 2023/02

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36030-0

Interstitial oxygen embrittles titanium, particularly at cryogenic temperatures, which necessitates a stringent control of oxygen content in fabricating titanium and its alloys. Here, we propose a structural strategy, via grain refinement, to alleviate this problem. Compared to a coarse-grained counterpart that is extremely brittle at 77K, the uniform elongation of an ultrafine-grained (UFG) microstructure (grain size 2.0 m) in Ti-0.3wt.%O was successfully increased by an order of magnitude, maintaining an ultrahigh yield strength inherent to the UFG microstructure. This unique strength-ductility synergy in UFG Ti-0.3wt.%O was achieved via the combined effects of diluted grain boundary segregation of oxygen that helps to improve the grain boundary cohesive energy and enhanced dislocation activities that contribute to the excellent strain hardening ability. The present strategy could not only boost the potential applications of high strength Ti-O alloys at low temperatures, but could also be applied to other alloy systems, where interstitial solution hardening results into an undesirable loss of ductility.