The Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory reports that 2-D tin could be the next super material, meaning that it would be the world’s first material to conduct electricity with 100 efficiency at the temperatures that computer chips operate. The results are published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

“Stanene could increase the speed and lower the power needs of future generations of computer chips, if our prediction is confirmed by experiments that are underway in several laboratories around the world,” posited team leader Shoucheng Zhang, a physics professor at Stanford and the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences.

A special class of materials known as topological insulators conduct electricity only on their outside edges or surface and not via their interiors. When topological insulators are just one atom thick, their edges conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency.

“The magic of topological insulators is that by their very nature, they force electrons to move in defined lanes without any speed limit, like the German autobahn,” Zhang said. “As long as they’re on the freeway – the edges or surfaces – the electrons will travel without resistance.”

The scientists previously predicted that mercury telluride and several combinations of bismuth, antimony, selenium and tellurium should all be topological insulators. However, none of those materials is a perfect conductor of electricity at room temperature.

“We knew we should be looking at elements in the lower-right portion of the periodic table,” noted Yong Xu, who is now at Tsinghua University. “All previous topological insulators have involved the heavy and electron-rich elements located there.”

The researchers’ calculations indicated that 2-D tin would be a topological insulator at and above room temperature.

“Eventually, we can imagine stanene being used for many more circuit structures, including replacing silicon in the hearts of transistors,” Zhang said. “Someday we might even call this area Tin Valley rather than Silicon Valley.”