{"id":20774,"date":"2025-08-24T19:26:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T19:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/20774\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T19:26:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T19:26:07","slug":"scientists-discover-revolutionary-new-class-of-materials-intercrystals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/20774\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Discover Revolutionary New Class of Materials: \u201cIntercrystals\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"Intercrystal<\/a>An intercrystal formed by overlaying twisted graphene on hexagonal boron nitride. Credit: Andrei Lab\/Rutgers University
\n\u201cIntercrystals\u201d could pave the way toward greener electronics and next-generation quantum technologies.<\/p>\n

Scientists at Rutgers University-New Brunswick<\/a> have identified a new type of material known as intercrystals, which display unusual electronic behaviors that may help shape future technologies.<\/p>\n

According to the research team, intercrystals demonstrate electronic characteristics not previously observed, opening the door to progress in areas such as advanced electronic devices, quantum computing, and sustainable materials.<\/p>\n

The findings, published in Nature Materials, describe how the researchers created intercrystals by layering two sheets of graphene\u2014each just one atom thick and arranged in a honeycomb-like grid\u2014on top of a crystal of hexagonal boron nitride (a compound made of boron and nitrogen). By slightly twisting the graphene layers, they produced moir\u00e9 patterns (similar to the visual ripples that appear when two fine mesh screens overlap). This small structural shift dramatically influenced the way electrons traveled through the material.<\/p>\n

Controlling Electrons with Geometry<\/p>\n

\u201cOur discovery opens a new path for material design,\u201d said Eva Andrei, Board of Governors Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences and lead author of the study. \u201cIntercrystals give us a new handle to control electronic behavior using geometry alone, without having to change the material\u2019s chemical composition.\u201d<\/p>\n

By understanding and controlling the unique properties of electrons in intercrystals, scientists can use them to develop technologies such as more efficient transistors and sensors that previously required a more complex mix of materials and processing, the researchers said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can imagine designing an entire electronic circuit where every function \u2013 switching, sensing, signal propagation \u2013 is controlled by tuning geometry at the atomic level,\u201d said Jedediah Pixley, an associate professor of physics and a co-author of the study. \u201cIntercrystals could be the building blocks of such future technologies.<\/p>\n

\u201dThe discovery hinges on a rising technique in modern physics called \u201ctwistronics,\u201d where layers of materials are contorted at specific angles to create moir\u00e9 patterns. These configurations significantly alter the behavior of electrons within the substance, leading to properties that aren\u2019t found in regular crystals.<\/p>\n

The foundational idea was first demonstrated by Andrei and her team in 2009, when they showed that moir\u00e9 patterns in twisted graphene dramatically reshape its electronic structure. That discovery helped seed the field of twistronics.<\/p>\n

Beyond Conventional Crystals<\/p>\n

Electrons are tiny particles that move around in materials and are responsible for conducting electricity. In regular crystals, which possess a repeating pattern of atoms forming a perfectly arranged grid, the way electrons move is well understood and predictable. If a crystal is rotated or shifted by certain angles or distances, it looks the same because of an intrinsic characteristic known as symmetry.<\/p>\n

The researchers found the electronic properties of intercrystals, however, can vary significantly with small changes in their structure. This variability can lead to new and unusual behaviors, such as superconductivity and magnetism, which aren\u2019t typically found in regular crystals. Superconducting materials offer the promise of continuously flowing electrical current because they conduct electricity with zero resistance.<\/p>\n

Intercrystals could be a part of the new circuitry for low loss electronics and atomic sensors that could play a part in the making of quantum computers and power new forms of consumer technologies, the scientists said.<\/p>\n

The materials also offer the prospect of functioning as the basis of more environmentally friendly electronic technologies.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause these structures can be made out of abundant, non-toxic elements such as carbon, boron, and nitrogen, rather than rare earth elements, they also offer a more sustainable and scalable pathway for future technologies,\u201d Andrei said.<\/p>\n

A New Phase of Matter<\/p>\n

Intercrystals aren\u2019t only distinct from conventional crystals. They are also different from quasicrystals, a special type of crystal discovered in 1982 with an ordered structure but without the repeating pattern found in regular crystals.<\/p>\n

Research team members named their discovery \u201cintercrystals\u201d because they are a mix between crystals and quasicrystals: they have non-repeating patterns like quasicrystals but share symmetries in common with regular crystals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe discovery of quasicrystals in the 1980s challenged the old rules about atomic order,\u201d Andrei said. \u201cWith intercrystals, we go a step further, showing that materials can be engineered to access new phases of matter by exploiting geometric frustration at the smallest scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rutgers researchers are optimistic about the future applications of intercrystals, opening new possibilities for exploring and manipulating the properties of materials at the atomic level.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just the beginning,\u201d Pixley said. \u201cWe are excited to see where this discovery will lead us and how it will impact technology and science in the years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reference: \u201cMoir\u00e9 periodic and quasiperiodic crystals in heterostructures of twisted bilayer graphene on hexagonal boron nitride\u201d by Xinyuan Lai, Guohong Li, Angela M. Coe, Jedediah H. Pixley, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi and Eva Y. Andrei, 6 May 2025, Nature Materials.
DOI: 10.1038\/s41563-025-02222-w<\/a><\/p>\n

Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An intercrystal formed by overlaying twisted graphene on hexagonal boron nitride. Credit: Andrei Lab\/Rutgers University \u201cIntercrystals\u201d could pave…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[271],"tags":[5426,18,19,17,909,452,751,17905,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-20774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-crystals","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-materials-science","13":"tag-physics","14":"tag-quantum-computing","15":"tag-rutgers-university","16":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}