CAJ #8 - Stanene

So far I have only been talking about graphene as the new super material, as something that will revolutionize our world. But what if there is something as good as graphene or maybe even better? What if that something is stanene?

Stanene is a topological insulator. It is a material made from a single layer of tin atoms. It has been discovered by researchers from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University. The material was named stanene to liken it to graphene (plus the prefix of the Latin term for tin, stannum). However, stanene still has not been fabricated but when it does, it could be the world’s first electrical conductor that works at 100% efficiency at room temperature and above. This would make it even more conductive than graphene.

Stanene could increase the speed and lower the power needs of future generations of computer chips. This is still only a prediction but researchers as Stanford University, led by Shouchen Zhang, a physics professor ar Stanford, are currently conducting experiments in several laboratories to prove their predictions.

So far copper has been the number one material to carry electricity in various forms. Besides being cheap and conductive, it can also easily be drawn into strips. Modern chips the size of a thumbnail can contain up to sixty miles of copper wiring. The limits of copper are being pushed, channeling so much electricity through it that the material's electrical resistance causes wires to overheat. This could potentially set the whole device on fire. If researchers succeed in the production of stanene, computer chips could get smaller and faster without the risk of overheating. 

Earlier I mentioned stanene being a topological insulator. This means that its interior is an insulator but it conducts electrons along its surface. If stanene could be made only an atom thick, it would become all surface, thus it could conduct electricity with a 100% efficiency. As long as the topological insulators stay at the surface, the electrons will travel without resistance.

Researches claim that by adding fluorine to the mix, this level of efficiency can be preserved even at temperatures of up to 100 degrees Celsius. This would allow stanene to be used in computers where processors usually run at temperatures of between 40 and 90 degrees Celsius.

Although this is only a prediction since stanene faces many difficulties of manufacturing one-atom thick wires on an industrial scale and there is no working sample of the material available, Zhang is an optimist and has every reason to be one. He and his team have already predicted the properties of many topological insulators, such as mercury telluride, that were later confirmed experimentally.

It is still too soon to say when stanene will be used in the production of computer chips but it will happen, sooner or later. 

XOXO A.