Chinese scientists surprised the world with a key innovation to be applied in low-power technology and electronics. They created a metal 200,000 times thinner than a hair.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences shared the study on two-dimensional metals that is already making an impact worldwide.
Experts from the Asian country managed to synthesize these 2D metals with a thickness 200,000 times smaller than a hair.
They created a metal thinner than a hair: the research
These two-dimensional metals have a thickness of less than a nanometer and approach the angstrom limit, a unit of measurement equivalent to one-tenth of a nanometer and used to measure atomic-scale structures.
The study was published in the Nature journal. It was carried out by the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and is important due to its potential applications in electronics and optoelectronics.
The team used an innovative method called van der Waals compression, which allowed them to stabilize ultra-thin layers of bismuth, tin, lead, indium, and gallium between monolayers of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2). This prevents their degradation by chemical reactions with the environment.
These two-dimensional metals exhibit emerging physical properties, including higher electrical conductivity than their three-dimensional counterparts and a new mode of phononic vibration.
