Lancaster University research into novel two-dimensional materials has been selected as the cover image and Editor’s Choice by a scientific journal.

Wiley’s Advanced Materials Interfaces features the research on its front cover while the paper itself has been selected as an Editors' Choice, which features articles “handpicked by the editorial team to showcase the very best that the journal has to offer.”

The research, led by Professor of Nanoscience Oleg Kolosov and PhD student Sergio Gonzalez-Munoz, directly measures the heat conductivity of two-dimensional materials (2DMs) in what the journal describes as an “innovative approach”.

Two–dimensional materials are composed of stacks of nearly-perfect tightly bound atomic sheets connected by the weaker van der Walls forces. The typical examples are recently discovered graphene, molybdenum disulphide and the vast range of transition metal dichalcogenides.

These are known for their record-breaking electronic and mechanical properties as well as their unique ability to manipulate heat conductance.

In particular, the heat conductivity of 2DMs is key to developing novel highly efficient thermoelectrics but the problem is that it is practically impossible to measure thermal conductivity in the nanoscale thin layers of 2DMs.

The researchers resolved this challenge by developing novel scanning thermal microscopy approach allowing to directly measure the heat conductivity for both the in-plane and cross-plane directions of two-dimensional materials. Both planes are very different due to the atomic structure of the material.

Professor Kolosov said: “This work explains the origin of the record breaking thermoelectric performance of multi-layered structures of two-dimensional materials which we researchers described in an earlier paper.

“We enable such measurements and demonstrated this with the example of the potentially highly performing 2DM thermoelectric indium selenide (InSe).”

He said the research had implications for future technological development.

“This work paves the way for creating efficient waste heat scavengers generating cheap electricity, new compact fridges, and advanced optical and microwave sensors and cameras.