The next miracle materials? Graphene’s newest siblings
Calling all science nerds. Remember when the pioneers of graphene were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010? Or when the European Union awarded $1B in funding to research the material? Flash forward to 2020, where graphene has dozens of real-life applications, but is also met with some new kids on the block: borophene and phosphorene.
Since 2D Phosphorene (you guessed it, the Phosphorus equivalent to carbon-based graphene) was originally isolated in 2014, many developments have followed. Last year, for example, phosphorene nanotubes were created for the first time, lending to potential applications in batteries, thermoelectrics, quantum computing, and more.
2015 was the year of borophene (yep, the Boron equivalent). Since discovery, it began finding its way into a few patents (2017: 2, 2018: 2, 2019: 1) and started getting news coverage around the same time. Similar to graphene and phosphorene, the science community is excited about borophene’s properties: apparently more flexible and stronger than graphene.
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