Two-dimensional nanomaterials only a few atoms thick are being explored for a range of critical applications in biomedicine, electronics, nanodevices, energy storage and other areas, especially to enhance performance in extreme environments and ultra-demanding conditions.
But maintaining the order and stability that is vital for more widespread and predictably reliable nanomaterial applications is finicky; matter can exhibit unusual physical and chemical behavior at the nanoscale. That same quirky behavior, when understood and corralled, can provide many benefits through the ability to tailor material structure at extremely small scales to achieve customizable properties and performance capabilities.
Babak Anasori is the Reilly Rising Star Associate Professor of Materials and Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. His research group studies the family of 2D materials known as MXenes (pronounced "max-eens"), which were discovered in 2011 and have since become the largest known family of 2D nanomaterials.
MXenes are 2D carbides and nitrides—imagine materials like titanium carbide or tungsten carbide but in ultrathin 1-nanometer sheets, which is about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair. Every nanometer sheet is made of only a few layers of atoms. Their layered construction offers a combination of properties—such as high electrical conductivity, hydrophilicity (readily soluble), compositional tunability and novel functionality—that make them ideal building blocks for a variety of uses in technology.
In Anasori's recent paper, "Order to Disorder Transition Due to Entropy in Layered and 2D Carbides," published in Science, the limits for the construction of these ultrathin materials were tested.