Australian scientists have produced a new two-dimensional material they believe could revolutionise the electronics market with thinner, faster and lighter gadgets.
Silicon chips have reached their limit in terms of speed and ability to store an electrical charge.
But RMIT University and CSIRO researchers have made a new flat material, made up of layers of crystal known as molybdenum oxides, which has properties that encourage the free flow of electrons at ultra-high speeds.
They say this could boost speed of communication and capacitance, the ability to store an electrical charge, using the same size chips as are used today.
In the journal Advanced Materials, they explain how they adapted the ground-breaking material graphene to create a new conductive nano-material.
Graphene was created in 2004, and was touted as the two dimensional material of the future, winning its UK inventors a Nobel Prize in 2010.
However, some of its physical properties prevent it from being used for high-speed electronics.
The CSIRO's Serge Zhuiykov said the new nano-material was made up of layered sheets similar to the graphite layers that make up the core of a pencil.
The importance of the new discovery is how quickly electrons which conduct electricity are able to flow through the new material, he said.
“We will be able to transfer data more quickly and the functionality of devices will improve,” he said.
The only thing stopping that from happening will be the ability of the software developers to write new programs which make the most of these speeds.
“At the moment it is beyond our imagination where this new material could be applied, but it could be employed to create thinner mobile phones, new types of flexible electronics or lighter laptops,” he said. It could also be used for data storage.
RMIT's Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh said if electrons could pass through a structure quicker, devices that transfer data at much higher speeds could be made smaller.
“This breakthrough lays the foundation for a new electronics revolution and we look forward to exploring its potential,” Prof Kalantar-zadeh said.
