A new superconductor made from tin atoms is poised to overtake graphene by becoming the world’s first material to conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency at the high operating temperatures used by computer chips.
Known as “stanene,” the material was discovered by a team of theoretical physicists led by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University.
“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,” team leader Shoucheng Zhang, a physics professor at Stanford and the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES), a joint institute with SLAC, said.
The discovery is the result of a decade of research on the electronic properties of topological insulators, which conduct electricity on their outside edges or surfaces but not through their interiors. Zhang and his colleagues had previously predicted a number of untested material combinations to be topological insulators with success; however, none of the combinations proved to be a perfect conductor of electricity at room temperature, which limited their use in commercial applications. Earlier this year, the team determined through calculations that a single layer of tin would be an ideal topological insulator at and above room temperature, and that adding fluorine atoms to the tin would extend its operating range to 100°C (212°F). The team’s work was published recently in the journal Physical Review Letters.
According to Zhang, if used in the wiring that connects the different sections of a microprocessor, the new stanene-fluorine combination could help reduce the power consumption and amount of heat generated in the device. Eventually, he added, stanene could also be used in other circuit structures, including as a replacement for silicone in transistors.
“Someday we might even call this area Tin Valley rather than Silicon Valley,” he said.
