Theoretical physicists design 'holy grail' of materials science

Physicists of Utrecht University and their French colleagues have theorized the 'holy grail' of material science. It's a material that should exhibit a unique combination of the exceptional electronic properties of graphene with the important properties that graphene misses at room temperature. "If we manage to synthesize this 'holy grail' and it exhibits the theoretically predicted properties, a new field of research and applications opens up we can't fathom yet," says Prof. Cristiane Morais Smith from Utrecht University. Their findings are published in Nature Communications on 10 March 2015.

Graphene is a form of carbon in which the atoms are connected in a honeycomb structure. The possible 'holy grail' has this same structure, but is made of nanocrystals of mercury and tellurium. In their paper, the theoretical physicists show that this material combines the properties of graphene with the qualities graphene lacks. At room temperature, it is a semiconductor instead of a conductor, so that it can be used as a field-effect transistor. And it fulfills the conditions required to realise quantum spintronics, because it may host the quantum spin Hall effect at room temperature.