A heat shield just 10 atoms thick to protect electronic devices

Nanowerk  August 17, 2019 A team of researchers in the US (Stanford University, NIST) demonstrated unusually high thermal isolation across ultrathin heterostructures, achieved by layering atomically thin 2D materials. They realized artificial stacks of monolayer graphene, MoS2, and WSe2 with thermal resistance greater than 100 times thicker SiO2 and effective thermal conductivity lower than air at room temperature. Ultrahigh thermal isolation was achieved through the mismatch in mass density and phonon density of states between the 2D layers. These thermal metamaterials are an example in the emerging field of phononics and could find applications where ultrathin thermal insulation is desired, […]