Slashdot Mirror
Single-Atom Layer of Tin May Be a New Wonder Conductor
At Kurzweil AI, an article proclaims that the next wonder material for computer chips may be an unexpectedly common one:
"Move over, graphene. 'Stanene' — a single layer of tin atoms — could be the world’s first material to conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency at the temperatures that computer chips operate, according to a team of theoretical physicists led by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University." (Original paper is available here, but paywalled.)
It is right and proper to have doubts about new announcements like this. That is the basis of science - the idea of "replicate, then trust, but verify" at the core of scientific approaches. If this turns out to be either an error, a late April-fools joke, a scam, a one-off result that cannot be replicated, or a valid result within a small range of constraints, then it will be labelled as such.
However, if subsequent independent experiments show a robust and consistent process that can be replicated easily, then I for one will welcome our new (1 atom-thick) tinfoil hat-wearing overlords...
At least as far as I can tell without access to the paywalled concept.
Important questions would be:
What is the maximum current that can be transported through strips of various widths?
How sensitive to defects is the process?
Tin is going to be a major problem for much semiconductor processing - as it means you basically now can't solder the chip, or do any even 'low' temperature processing after it's deposited - it has to be the last layer.
Bzzzt! wrong. If I trust you, I will verify your work. If I don't trust you, I won't even bother to look at it.
Trust is about honesty, not about infallibility.