Since its discovery in 2004, graphene -- sheets of carbon an atom thick -- has sparked a flurry of research into the nanomaterial's potential applications for blazing fast, tiny electronics. Now, several research groups claim to have created analogous thin sheets of silicon called silicene, igniting a controversy over who won the race to synthesize this promising new material. Image of the two-dimensional honeycomb structure of silicene as captured by a scanning tunneling microscope. Credit: Patrick Vogt/TU Berlin Smaller means faster in electronics. Conventional electronic devices based on silicon are being miniaturized, but they start to malfunction as they approach the limits of the single atom scale. Consequently, manufacturers need to find new solutions for faster electronics in the coming years. Because silicene and graphene are essentially two-dimensional they can work at the single atom level.
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