World’s First 2-D Electride

A team of researchers recently registered success in bringing electrides into nanoregime through synthesis of 2D electride material. Technically, electrides are ionic compounds that are formed from negative and positive ions, however, in electrides the negative ions are nothing else but the electrons without any nucleus. These electrons are quite close to each other and bounded very loosely which compels these to behave more like electron gas. This gas imparts specific characteristics to electrides like high electron mobility as well as rapid electrical communications making these a preferred object for electronics applications.

This research was led by Scott C Warren, who is also an assistant professor of chemistry and applied physical sciences at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He explains that, “Layered electrides have very exciting electronic properties—for example, a conductivity much greater than that of graphene. In the crystal structure of a layered electride, a cloud of electrons is spread out into a flat two-angstrom-thick plane between slabs of atoms. The electrons can conduct through that flat cloud with few interactions with nearby atoms, allowing them to move very quickly.”

Through its study the team was successful in showing that when a layered eletride, dicalcium nitride, is formulated in a 2-D, single layered form, first 2D electride is formed. Warren further adds that, “We have isolated a few layers of the crystal, perhaps as thin as a nanometer to several nanometers. Because of its thinness, this material is called a 2D material, like graphene. An electride as a 2D material had been predicted to be stable in vacuum and to retain its exciting electronic qualities by theoretical calculations, but the material is very reactive and it was an open question whether 2D Ca2N could be made in a lab setting. We showed that in the right chemical environment, the material is stable for long periods of time without compromising its exciting electronic properties.”