BEIJING — A major scientific advance by Chinese researchers in producing the country’s first two-dimensional (2D) metals has been named among Physics World’s “Top 10 Breakthroughs of 2025.”
The breakthrough, achieved by a research team at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, overcomes a challenge long considered nearly impossible and was published in the journal “Nature” in March. Since the discovery of monolayer graphene in 2004, 2D materials have transformed understanding in condensed-matter physics and materials science. Over the past two decades, hundreds of 2D materials have been experimentally realized, with nearly 2,000 more theoretically predicted.
However, fabricating 2D metals remained elusive due to the strong metallic bonds holding atoms together in all directions.
According to Zhang Guangyu, a leading scientist on the project, the team solved this problem by developing an atomic-scale manufacturing technique known as the van der Waals squeezing method.
Using this approach, researchers successfully created a range of 2D metals, including bismuth, tin, lead, indium and gallium.“These 2D metals are extraordinarily thin — about one millionth the thickness of an A4 sheet of paper and roughly one 200,000th the diameter of a human hair,” Zhang said.The development is expected to open new technological frontiers, with potential applications in ultra-miniaturized low-power transistors, high-frequency devices, transparent displays, ultra-sensitive sensors and highly efficient catalysis.*Physics World* is the flagship magazine and online platform of the Institute of Physics, the professional body for physics in the UK and Ireland. Its annual top 10 breakthroughs list is widely regarded as authoritative, recognizing achievements that significantly advance scientific knowledge, combine theory and experiment, and capture the attention of the global physics community.
