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    How 2D materials work: graphene, stacks and twists

    Two-dimensional (2D) materials are crystals only one or a few atoms thick; the first, graphene, was isolated with adhesive tape and won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics.[1][2] Stacking and twisting such layers creates designer materials, and in 2025 a 2D semiconductor was used to build a working 5,900-transistor microprocessor.[3][4]

    Editor reviewedUpdated Materials sciencePhysicsScience

    One atom thick

    Researchers peeled graphite, the material in pencils, apart with ordinary sticky tape until they had a flake of carbon just one atom thick: graphene, described in a 2004 paper.[1][5] The work won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics.[2]

    Graphene is the thinnest material known and also among the strongest. It conducts electricity as well as copper and conducts heat better than any other known material.[6]

    The 2004 Science paper reported graphene as a naturally occurring 2D material and demonstrated a field-effect device with ballistic transport over submicron distances at room temperature.[5] The 2010 Nobel citation recognised “groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene”.[2]

    Stacking like Lego

    Graphene was only the first. Other crystals can also be thinned to single layers, and the layers can be stacked in any order you choose, held together by weak “van der Waals” forces. Scientists call the results van der Waals heterostructures: materials designed layer by layer.[3]

    Geim and Grigorieva’s 2013 review framed the agenda: isolated atomic planes “can also be reassembled into designer heterostructures made layer by layer in a precisely chosen sequence”.[3] Frontier stacks combine graphene with other layered crystals such as hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) and molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe2): the 2024 fractional quantum anomalous Hall results used rhombohedral graphene aligned to hBN, and the 2023 results used twisted MoTe2.[7][8]

    Twisting: a new control knob

    Lay one sheet of graphene on another and rotate it slightly, and a larger repeating “moiré” pattern appears, like two overlapping window screens. Theory predicted in 2011 that at a “magic” angle of about one degree, electrons would slow almost to a stop.[9] In 2018 experiments found that this twisted graphene becomes a superconductor, opening the field often called “twistronics”.[10]

    A small twist creates a long-wavelength moiré superlattice whose minibands flatten near magic angles, so electron interactions dominate over kinetic energy.[9] Flat bands in magic-angle graphene produced gate-tunable superconductivity up to 1.7 K, with a cuprate-like phase diagram.[10][11] Since 2023 moiré and rhombohedral systems have shown zero-field fractional quantum anomalous Hall states, and a July 2026 Nature paper reported a fractional Chern insulator with C = 7/3.[8][7][12] See twisted-bilayer-graphene.

    From lab flakes to chips

    Could atom-thin semiconductors one day replace silicon? In April 2025 a team at Fudan University in China built a working 32-bit microprocessor from 5,900 transistors made of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), a 2D semiconductor.[4] It ran at kilohertz speeds, far slower than silicon chips, and its makers said it was not ready for real-world use.[13]

    The Fudan RISC-V processor integrated 5,900 MoS2 field-effect transistors with a reported chip-level yield of 99.8%, but at kilohertz clock rates.[4][13] For the wider chip context, see how chips are made, why chip scaling slowed and gate-all-around-transistors.

    Questions readers ask

    How was graphene first made?

    By peeling graphite with ordinary adhesive tape until a carbon flake just one atom thick remained.[1]

    What is special about graphene?

    It is the thinnest material known and among the strongest, conducts electricity as well as copper, and conducts heat better than any other known material.[6]

    Can 2D materials replace silicon in chips?

    Not yet. A 2025 processor built from 5,900 MoS2 transistors ran at kilohertz speeds, and its developers said it was not ready for real-world use.[4][13]

    What is a van der Waals heterostructure?

    A designer material made by stacking separate atom-thin crystals layer by layer in a chosen sequence.[3]

    Sources

    Each numbered claim is a statement we checked against the sources listed with it. Status shows how well established it is.

    1. [1]

      Graphene was first isolated by peeling graphite with ordinary adhesive tape to obtain a carbon flake one atom thick. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    2. [2]

      The 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics went to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene". confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    3. [3]

      Isolated atomic planes of graphene and other 2D crystals can be reassembled layer by layer into designer "van der Waals heterostructures". confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    4. [4]

      In April 2025 a Fudan University team reported in Nature a 32-bit RISC-V microprocessor built from 5,900 molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) transistors, running at kilohertz clock speeds. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    5. [5]

      The 2004 Science paper that launched graphene research described a naturally occurring two-dimensional carbon material and a transistor made from it. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    6. [6]

      Graphene is the thinnest material known and also among the strongest; it conducts electricity as well as copper and conducts heat better than any other known material. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    7. [7]

      A rhombohedral five-layer graphene/hBN moiré superlattice showed integer and fractional quantum anomalous Hall effects at zero magnetic field at several filling factors, reported in Nature in 2024. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    8. [8]

      In 2023 researchers observed the fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect, fractionally quantised Hall resistance with no applied magnetic field, in twisted bilayer MoTe2, enabling research into charge fractionalisation and anyonic statistics without external magnetic fields. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    9. [9]

      A 2011 theory paper predicted that at "magic" twist angles of about one degree, the lowest moiré band of twisted bilayer graphene becomes flat and electron velocity at the Dirac point vanishes. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    10. [10]

      In 2018 experimenters reported superconductivity at up to 1.7 K in twisted bilayer graphene near the 1.1° magic angle, tunable with an electric gate. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    11. [11]

      The phase diagram of magic-angle graphene shows similarities to that of the cuprate high-temperature superconductors, including superconducting domes, making it the first purely carbon-based 2D superconductor. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    12. [12]

      A Nature paper published on 15 July 2026 reported quantum anomalous Hall insulators with Chern numbers from 1 to 7 and an exotic fractional Chern insulator with C = 7/3 in a moiré system of Bernal bilayer and rhombohedral tetralayer graphene. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    13. [13]

      The MoS2 processor's developers said it is not yet ready for real-world use, although it achieved a chip-level yield of 99.8%. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    Revision history (2)
    1. Page created.
    2. Linked the how-chips-are-made explainer.

    Created Oct 10, 2026. Last reviewed by an editor on Oct 10, 2026. Next scheduled review: Jan 10, 2027.

    Cite this page

    "How 2D materials work: graphene, stacks and twists." ContentLora, updated Oct 10, 2026. https://contentlora.com/explain/how-2d-materials-work

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