The incredibly thin sheets of material offer some electrical properties that other forms of carbon do not, which could open up new possibilities around electronics and advanced lithium batteries.

Graphene has generated a lot of hype in material science circles due to its incredible strength, flexibility, thinness and lightness, along with its ability to act as an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. As a two-dimensional sheet of carbon, it owes these characteristics to its unique arrangement of atoms that are organized in a honeycomb pattern, and scientists have suspected that alternative arrangements could give other two-dimensional forms of carbon their own unique qualities.

While these carbon materials have been theorized, none have yet materialized, but scientists at University of Marburg in Germany and Aalto University in Finland have now made a big breakthrough. The work begins with carbon-containing molecules that are placed on a very smooth gold surface, where they form two mirroring types of chains, like left and right hands. Unlike graphene, where different chains bind together, only chains of the same type bind together to form not just honeycomb patterns, but squares and octagons, as well. They've dubbed this new material biphenylene.

"The new idea is to use molecular precursors that are tweaked to yield biphenylene instead of graphene," explains Linghao Yan, who carried out the high-resolution microscopy experiments at Aalto University.