A research team from The University of Texas at Dallas has been involved in analyzing a variety of materials for several years hoping to find one with electrical properties that may be suitable for small, energy-efficient transistors to power future electronic devices.
They recently discovered one such material; however it was something no one expected.
Dr. Moon Kim and his colleagues explain in a research article published online in the journal Advanced Materials on March 10, that when a material is heated to approximately 450 °C, it transforms from an atomically thin, 2D sheet into an array of 1D nanowires, each measuring only a few atoms in width.