According to a report in Nature(via Interesting Engineering), researchers from the Chinese Academy of Physics can create super-thin sheets, just one or two atoms thick, out of materials including bismuth, gallium, indium, tin, and lead. How, you cry, is this done? Some exotic material depositing technique using the world's most powerful magnets? Maybe ultra-high intensity lasers? Nope, by squeezing the materials really quite hard with a hydraulic press.
Following our recent report of a super-fast new transistor from Peking University, not to mention a Chinese EUV lithography machine to rival that of ASML, this latest innovation from ye olde People's Republic results in super-thin "2D" metal sheets that could enable ultra-low power chips and super-sensitive, well, sensors, among other high-tech novelties.
