Materials with 5<i>d</i> electrons for future technologies

Nature Materials (2026)Cite this article Materials with 5d electrons show outstanding functional and structural properties. This Perspective systematically analyses the intrinsic electronic structures of materials with 5d electrons to enhance our understanding of their unique functions. Specifically, how the interplay among various factors, including strong nuclear attraction, relativistic effects, strong spin–orbit coupling, large orbital spatial extension, strong crystal field splitting and moderate electron correlation, determines the electronic structures. 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Google Scholar Balents, L. Spin liquids in frustrated magnets. Nature 464, 199–208 (2010).Article CAS PubMed Google Scholar Download referencesThis work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 52342204). We acknowledge A. Gao from Central China Normal University for data collection and analysis.Beijing National Center for Electron Microscopy and Laboratory of Advanced Materials, State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, ChinaLin Gu & Ce-Wen NanDepartment of Engineering and Materials Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Beijing, ChinaYeqiang TanSearch author on:PubMed Google ScholarSearch author on:PubMed Google ScholarSearch author on:PubMed Google ScholarY.T. and C.-W.N. conceived of the idea and outlined the scope of the Perspective. L.G. drafted the paper. L.G., Y.T. and C.-W.N. contributed to the interpretation and critical discussion. All authors revised the paper.Correspondence to Ce-Wen Nan or Yeqiang Tan.The authors declare no competing interests.Nature Materials thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.Reprints and permissionsGu, L., Nan, CW. & Tan, Y. Materials with 5d electrons for future technologies. Nat. Mater. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-026-02554-1Download citationReceived: 23 April 2025Accepted: 20 February 2026Published: 27 March 2026Version of record: 27 March 2026DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-026-02554-1Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative