Ref. 1

Physicists say they have produced stanene - a 2D layer of tin (Sn) atoms. It forms a honeycomb structure 'buckled' on top of a bismuth telluride support (centre: top view; right: side view). Microscope images pick out only the upper ridges of the sheet (left).

Two years after physicists predicted that tin should be able to form a mesh just one atom thick, researchers say that they have made it. The thin film, called stanene, is reported on 3 August inNature Materials¹. But researchers have not been able to confirm whether the material has the predicted exotic electronic properties that have excited theorists, such as being able to conduct electricity without generating any waste heat.

Source: H. Terrones et al. Sci. Rep. 3, 1549 (2013)

 

Stacks of multiple kinds of flat materials can exploit the best properties of each.

Physicists have used almost every superlative they can think of to describe graphene. This gossamer, one-atom-thick sheet of carbon is flexible, transparent, stronger than steel, more conductive than copper and so thin that it is effectively two-dimensional (2D). No sooner was it isolated in 2004 than it became an obsession for researchers around the world.