Foreword

After the advent of graphene in 2004, celebrated by the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for "groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene", there has been a surge of related articles on 2D materials, either peeled off from lamellar crystals existing in natureby analogy with the exfoliation of graphitelike the transition metal dichalcogenides or black phophorous, or, instead, upon synthesis of novel artificial ones, especially the so-called Xenes, following the first realization of silicene in 2012.In 2022, a number of books in this area and a plethora of review articles surfing on the wave have been already published.On the one hand, the field is still in full expansion; on the other hand, it is nurtured by fantastic discoveries, great expectations and a strong hype.To be fair, I have to say that many books are quite similar in content, and the review articles, which can be useful, unfortunately often look like uninspiring bailiff reports.In such a context, why preface a new book when the series is already overabundant?The reason is a stark contrast.Unlike most cases, this book is structured in a very different way, while its author, Dr Paolo Bondavalli, gives his own compelling opinion and far-reaching personal views.The atypical journey of Dr Bondavalli, who went to a leading institute to do fundamental research work after spending a decade in a company, likely explains the book's peculiar architecture and its ambitious goals.The reader will enter the realm of 2D materials and understand the fundamentals of the topology involved without tedious mathematical developments.He will discover fascinating exotic properties and target groundbreaking potential applications in the "more than Moore perspective"notably for thermoelectricityand at the "beyond CMOS horizon", for example for all-spin logic.He will learn how materials such as stanene, few-layer black phosphorous or twisted van der Waals layers are arranged in a Lego architecture, along with the implementation of straintronics, and revolutionary paradigms such as valleytronics or twistronics could lead to radically new low-energy consumption devices for an environmentally friendly sustainable world.Finally, this book will galvanize the interest in 2D materials, help overcome inherent hurdles, provide avenues for the fabrication of reproducible innovative devices with long-term stability in ambient conditions and pave the way for their production at large scale, provided, of course, that the manufacturing costs will be low enough.