Beyond Graphene: A Comprehensive Review of Emerging 2D Materials

The discovery of graphene marked the beginning of a new era in material science, leading to the exploration of a wide array of two-dimensional (2D) materials with unique properties. While graphene's remarkable electrical, mechanical, and thermal properties have been well-studied, its lack of an intrinsic bandgap has limited its applications, especially in digital electronics. This has spurred extensive research into alternative 2D materials, including transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), black phosphorus (BP), MXenes, and other layered compounds. These materials offer diverse properties such as tunable bandgaps, high carrier mobilities, and anisotropic behavior, making them promising candidates for next-generation applications in electronics, optoelectronics, energy storage, catalysis, and sensing. In this review, we aim to present a unified and critical overview of the evolution, classification, and functional potential of emerging 2D materials beyo