Nature, Published online: 15 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10804-0

Elastic instabilities in mechanical metamaterials can be harnessed to programme fracture behaviour, transforming instability from a failure mechanism into a design principle that increases fracture energy by up to tenfold.

Nature, Published online: 24 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10662-w

Optical cooling in two-dimensional semiconductor heterostructures is demonstrated through phonon-assisted interfacial charge transfer, enabling cryogen-free thermal management without stringent quantum-efficiency requirements.