Scientists at Rutgers University have discovered a brand-new type of material—called intercrystals—that could lead to major advances in electronics, from energy-efficient devices to the building blocks of quantum computers.
This discovery, recently published in Nature Materials, may open the door to smarter, greener technology built from simple and abundant elements.
The research team, led by Professor Eva Andrei in Rutgers’ Department of Physics and Astronomy, created these intercrystals by layering two sheets of graphene—each just one atom thick—and placing them on top of another ultrathin material called hexagonal boron nitride.
When the layers were slightly rotated, they formed moiré patterns, which look similar to what you see when overlapping two mesh screens.
This tiny change in structure caused big changes in how electrons behaved in the material.
Electrons are the key players in electricity, and the way they move through materials determines how useful a material can be for things like transistors, sensors, or even quantum circuits.
Normally, crystals—materials with repeating atomic patterns—guide electron movement in predictable ways.
But in these intercrystals, a small change in structure can drastically shift how electrons behave, leading to strange and powerful effects like magnetism or superconductivity, where electricity flows with zero resistance.
What makes intercrystals especially exciting is that these new properties come from geometry, not from changing the material’s chemistry.
That means scientists can design new electronic functions simply by adjusting the angles between the layers—an approach known as “twistronics.” This technique has been gaining attention in recent years, and Andrei’s earlier work in 2009 helped lay the foundation for the field.
Intercrystals are not quite like regular crystals, but they’re not totally disordered either.
They fall somewhere in between traditional crystals and quasicrystals, a rare kind of material discovered in the 1980s that has an ordered but non-repeating structure.
The Rutgers team named their creation “intercrystals” to reflect this mix of order and complexity.
Because intercrystals can be made using carbon, boron, and nitrogen—elements that are common, non-toxic, and more sustainable than the rare materials often used in electronics—this discovery may help make future devices not just smarter, but also more eco-friendly.
These materials could one day be used in advanced electronics that consume less power, in highly sensitive sensors, or as components in the still-developing field of quantum computing.
Researchers at Rutgers and their collaborators in Japan say this is only the beginning.
As scientists continue to explore the strange and useful properties of intercrystals, they hope to unlock new ways to build technologies that are more powerful, efficient, and better for the planet.
Source: Rutgers University.
