A team of European research scientists have successfully synthesized the 2-D material germanene dubbed as 'cousin of graphene'. Germanene does not exist in nature and is made up of a single layer of germanium atoms that are deposited onto a substrate, in a vacuum at high temperature.

It has impressive electrical and optical properties and could be used across the electronics industry in the future.

The material was published on September 10 in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society's New Journal of Physics.

The 2D material germanene was first proposed to be used as an alternative in 2009, but production has remained weak. Much like silicene, the proposed method for synthesizing germanene is to deposit individual atoms of germanium onto a substrate under high temperatures and in an ultra-high vacuum. Unlike Silicene, Graphene is not suitable for digital logic applications as it has no gap. In addition, some scientists claim that germanene is a high temperature superconductor.

The breakthrough by the European research team was made in parallel with another research by an independent team from China. They have reported that germanene has been synthesized onto a platinum substrate. The team involved in the current study said that gold could be used as substrate to 'grow' germanene as it has a honeycomb structure.

After depositing the germanium atoms onto a gold substrate, the researchers were able to confirm that the material was in fact germanene by taking spectroscopy measurements and density functional theory (DFT) calculations, which investigated the electronic structure of the material.

He said, "The synthesis of germanene is just the very beginning of a long quest. An important aspect of our study is that we have increased the lego of 2D materials that we can use to build a whole host of artificial solid materials with a wide range of differing properties."