Two-dimensional metals open pathways to new science

Researchers at Penn State, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed an atomically thin materials platform that will open a wide range of new applications in biomolecular sensing, quantum phenomena, catalysis, and nonlinear optics. If you were to combine a metal with other 2D materials via traditional synthesis processes, the chemical reactions during synthesis would ruin the properties of both the metal and layered material. To avoid these reactions, the team exploited a method that automatically caps the 2D metal with a single layer of graphene while creating the 2D metal.