New material works like a cell’s dynamic internal skeleton, assembling and disassembling as it stores and releases energy. It can harvest energy from sunlight or other sources and store it in the dark. Material could open the door for clean, renewable energy that doesn’t require plastics or metals. First report of a material that stores energy by physically rebuilding itself.

Raman optical activity, long thought to require chiral molecules or magnetic order, has been demonstrated in an achiral, nonmagnetic crystal by researchers at Institute of Science Tokyo. The effect arises through ferroaxial order, a coordinated rotation of atoms within the lattice, and is detected using circularly polarized Raman spectroscopy. These findings show that optically inactive materials can also display chirality-like optical responses and expand the scope of optical techniques for discovering new materials.