As per a report on March 02, 2016, a new one-atom thick flat material that is better than graphene has been developed by a physicist at the University of Kentucky in the United States, Madhu Menon.
This new material is made up of nitrogen, boron and silicon and is an inexpensive and a light element. Being a stable material, it has all properties that lack in other alternatives of graphene. The discovery was published in the paper Physical
Menon stated that simulations were used to seeing if the bonds would disintegrate or break, but it didn’t happen that way.
The material was heated up to 1000 degree Celsius but still it didn’t break. With the help of state of the theoretical art computations, a combination of 3 elements was demonstrated by Menon and three collaborators.
It was seen that if the combination is used, obtaining one thick 2D material is possible with properties that can be fine-tuned for suiting various applications that graphene cannot do.
His colleagues include Antonis Andriotis from Greece’s Institute For Electronic Structure and Laser and Ernst Richter from Germany’s Daimler.
While graphene is considered to be the strongest material of the world having unique properties, there is one disadvantage as well. It is not a semiconductor, and so, the digital technology is disappointed. The three elements that formed the new material are of different sizes and have bonds that connect to atoms.
The hexagon sides formed by the atoms are quite unequal as opposed to the case of graphene. This new material is a metallic one and can be semiconducted with ease when other elements are attached on top of silicon atoms.
Menon says that this silicon-based technology has reached the limit because more and more components are being put together and are making electronic processors quite compact.
He says that they are quite anxious about getting this made in the lab. The ultimate test is experimental verification of the theory.
With this discovery, a new chapter is opened in material science that offers new opportunities for researchers so that functional flexibility and new properties can be explored for new applications.
