Creating two-dimensional materials cannot be found in nature

A team of RMIT University researchers in Melbourne, Australia has successfully developed an ultra-thin 2D material with a thickness just equal to atoms. This is said to be a breakthrough discovery "a decade only once."

Easy but not easy

The incredible discovery is made by Professor Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh and Dr. Torben Daeneke and students at RMIT School of Engineering. The team has been exploring and developing this material for more than a year.

Daeneke explains: "When you write on a page of paper, the graphite in the pencil leaves many small pieces called graphene (one layer of carbon atoms is arranged into a two-dimensional hexagonal network.) Thanks to the layer structure. We have a natural structure, we can easily extract this substance, but the problem here is that it cannot be seen in nature, so how to extract it? make a wonderful method but it is very simple to solve this problem. '

To create materials that can be seen with the naked eye, the team decayed the metal in a metal solution. Very thin oxide layers have an easily separated shell formed from there. Researcher Daeneke said: "The process of making oxides is extremely simple, like" foaming milk when brewing cappuccino ".

This research does not require a lot of expertise, so anyone can do it. Obviously, making materials is easy, but it is difficult to research that method to create.

New materials help electronic devices process faster.(Photo: Pixabay).

Improve electronic equipment

In addition to the advantage of being an effective tool for the study of chemistry, the new material also has the ability to improve the functioning of modern electronic devices. Scientists believe it can enhance data storage and make electronic devices run faster.

When oxide layers are removed, the material is used as semiconductor components in electronic devices. Due to its ultra-thin nature, the new material helps electronic devices process faster and consume less energy. Oxide layers are also used to create touch screens. Not only manufacturing companies, but even users can tinker with their own screens with this discovery.

Professor Kalantar-Zadeh said: "We anticipate that the new technology will be applied to substances in about a third of the periodic table. Semiconductor and dielectric components are the foundation of electronic devices and By combining with ultra-thin materials, electronic devices will work more efficiently and economically. "

The team did not correctly state how 2D materials could affect data storage, but we can speculate that it makes data transfer happen at extreme speeds. fast.

Recently, Sony's latest SD card line is touted as "the fastest in the world" , with an impressive transfer rate of 300 MB / s. What if we use new materials and bring this amazing capability to hard drives or cloud storage?

If research from RMIT University scientists is similar to low-power semiconductors developed by Stanford engineers in August, or like a one-dimensional material created by Dai's scientists Study Texas last year, this can become a reality.

The team did not mention the time but it may take some time before the material is officially used. Certainly, discovering 'a decade only once' requires rigorous testing and testing before it can change the world.