Excess heat given off by smartphones, laptops and other electronic devices contributes to malfunctions and causes lithium batteries to explode.

The current method tackle the problem is to insert glass, plastic or even layers of air as insulation to prevent heat-generating components like microprocessors from causing damage or discomforting users.

Now, Stanford researchers have shown that a few layers of atomically thin materials, stacked like sheets of paper atop hot spots, can provide the same insulation as a sheet of glass 100 times thicker.

Nano-scale heat shields could make electronic devices even more compact than those we have today and rather coo.

Eric Pop, professor of electrical engineering and senior author of a paper published Aug. 16 in Science Advances said: "To make nanoscale heat shields practical, the researchers will have to find some mass production technique to spray or otherwise deposit atom-thin layers of materials onto electronic components during manufacturing.”

The Boffins hope to control the vibrational energy inside materials the way they now control electricity and light. As they come to understand the heat in solid objects as a form of sound, a new field of phononics.