Borophene is the name for atomically thin, two-dimensional (2D) sheets of boron. Whereas boron is a nonmetallic semiconductor in its bulk form, it becomes a metallic conductor in 2D, even at a thickness of only one atomic layer.

Since superconductivity in three-layered graphene was discovered in September, the physics community has been left puzzled. Now, three months later, physicists from IST Austria together with colleagues from the Weizmann Institute of Science can successfully explain the results …