麻省理工学院研究人员已经迈出了一个重要的一步，用称为Aband gap, which is required to utilize graphene in the manufacturing process for electronic devices.
By placing a sheet of graphene, the now almost legendary one atom thick carbon-based material, on top of hexagonal boron nitride, another one-atom-thick material with similar properties, the new material adds the band gap, whilst sharing graphene’s ability to conduct electrons. Graphene is an extremely good conductor of electrons, while boron nitride is a good insulator, blocking the passage of electrons.
This was no easy task, as to ensure that the hybrid material’s conductor/ insulator properties work, the hexagonal atomic lattices required alignment with phenomenal accuracy, particularly as the boron nitride lattice is 1.8 percent larger. Currently, this task is difficult enough that it results in a 1 in 15 attempt success rate.
The hybrid also creates some advanced phenomena in itself, as the differential between the lattice size brings forth the opportunity to ‘tune’ the material via alignment rotation, whilst, against theoretical prediction, the band gap is maintained at a constant level.
坦白说，这很奇怪。
It’s kind of like being annoyed that the sun-heated swimming pool is full around the area where the sun has been on recently, only to be pleasantly surprised that not only is the bit that you slide into also warm, but the whole pool is of equal temperature. Kind of.
Put another way, regions of local quasi-epitaxial alignment lead to opposite signs of the sub-lattice asymmetry in different regions with
异质结构，而反对预测，导致带和价带之间的面积均保持着普遍存在，而与Moire单位细胞的距离无关。
麻省理工学院的研究人员指出，材料中迄今为止创建的频段隙比实用电子设备所需的材料小。寻找增加它的方法将需要进一步的工作。
An alternative semiconductor approach has been made by etching graphene sheets into narrow ribbons, but this degrades graphene’s electrical properties: this new method produces no such degradation.
而且，也强调了在麻省理工学院的3D打印研发，只能推测团队是否会连接？
Read more at麻省理工学院
REFERENCES:B. Hunt等人，《范德华异质结构》中的巨大狄拉克·费米斯和霍夫斯塔特蝴蝶，科学, 2013, DOI: 10.1126/SCIENCE.1237240
[Image Credits: B. Hunt et al./Science]