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Graphene has been getting enough attention already as a super conductor. Now a team of researchers have developed something better: Stanene. It is a single layer of tin atoms that could be the world's first material to conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency at the temperatures that make computers work.

The team of scientists from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have realized that a single layer of tin would be a topological insulator at and above room temperature. Their theoretical modeling of adding some fluorine atoms would extend its 100 percent efficiency operating range to at least 100 degrees Celsius.

Shoucheng Zhang, a physics professor at Stanford and the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, explains:
“Eventually, we can imagine stanene being used for many more circuit structures, including replacing silicon in the hearts of transistors... [It 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.”
So far stanene is lab bound for now. Which means a lot of testing has to be done before we can be certain it is the winner that the researchers claim it to be.

At least we have a backup winner: Graphene. [Physical Review Letters via Kurzweil]