Developed 10 atoms thick insulation

Electronic devices such as smartphones and PCs generate heat. When exposed to sunlight or when the device itself heats up, the device may be forced to shut down. Therefore, these devices are equipped with a cooling device. The problem is that this will increase the size of the device. However, a research team at Stanford University developed an ultra-thin insulation material that is only about 10 atoms thick.

It is important to keep the device from heat. Glass, plastic, and air layers are used as insulation for electronic devices, but in the worst case the battery may explode if poor insulation causes malfunction. If the insulation can be made thinner, the device itself can be downsized, so the Stanford University research team has challenged the development of a thin insulation material.

In a paper published in the journal Science Advances on August 16, the research team reported that an insulation material with a thickness of only 10 atoms exhibits the same insulation effect as a glass layer that is 100 times thicker. While developing a new insulation material, the research team revealed that it developed an ultra-thin insulation material by grasping the heat of electronic devices from a completely new perspective and seeing the heat as sound.

When an electron that flows electricity moves, it collides with various atoms, and a large amount of electrons and atoms collide, and vibration is transferred as heat. However, this heat is a very high frequency sound that humans cannot understand. However, in principle, heat and sound can be thought of as similar. Radio DJ booths, for example, maintain a quiet environment separated from the surroundings by thick glass, but electronic insulating glass can be used as well.

If you simply want to keep warm, you can imitate the thick glass of the DJ booth and make an insulation material using thick glass. However, electronic devices should be thin enough to insulate. The research team decided to develop a thin layer of insulation, taking hints from the idea of blocking the sound and heat of several windows.

Instead of thick glass, he came up with the idea of making insulation with layers of atomically thin layers of material. In recent years, an atomically thin material was discovered due to scientific development, and it is attracting attention as a new material that can be used in many fields, such as graphene, which is only one carbon atom thick.

Based on this idea, he succeeded in developing a four-layer insulation material with a total thickness of only 10 atoms by stacking graphene and three other atomically thin sheet-like materials. The new insulation, which reduces the movement of electrons that vibrate atoms as they pass through each layer, is thin but effective and exhibits a glass-like insulating property that is 100 times thicker.

Nanoscale insulation materials can help reduce the size of electronic devices, but practical use requires the development of a mass production method of insulation materials and the development of technology to place insulation materials at important locations of electronic devices. The research team says they have just begun to understand the ultra-high frequencies that represent heat on an atomic scale. Related information can be found here .