Thin-Film Semimetals Could Boost Future Electronics, Improving Performance and Dropping Power Draw

Researchers from the University of Minnesota have developed a new material which, they say, could boost the performance and storage capacity of future electronics while drawing considerably less energy — using a thin film of topological semimetals.

"This research shows for the first time that you can transition from a weak topological insulator to a topological semimetal using a magnetic doping strategy," explains senior author Jian-Ping Wang, electrical and computer engineering professor at the University. "We're looking for ways to extend the lifetimes for our electrical devices and at the same time lower the energy consumption, and we’re trying to do that in non-traditional, out-of-the-box ways."

"Every day in our lives, we use electronic devices, from our cell phones to dishwashers to microwaves. They all use chips. Everything consumes energy," adds fellow senior author Andre Mkhoyan, professor of chemical engineering and materials science. "The question is, how do we minimize that energy consumption? This research is a step in that direction. We are coming up with a new class of materials with similar or often better performance, but using much less energy."

The idea behind the work: moving away from electrical-charge devices, as with current processor and memory designs, to electron-spin devices based around new materials. The prototype of the material, built using a sputtering process which the team says is fully compatible with existing industry manufacturing techniques, proves its potential in serving as the base for these "spintronics" devices — which have the potential to outperform electronic equivalents at a massively reduced power draw.

"One of the main contributions of this work from a physics point of view is that we were able to study some of this material’s most fundamental properties," adds third senior author Tony Low, associate professor in the University of Minnesota Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

"Normally, when you apply a magnetic field, the longitudinal resistance of a material will increase, but in this particular topological material, we have predicted that it would decrease. We were able to corroborate our theory to the measured transport data and confirm that there is indeed a negative resistance."

The paper detailing the team's work has been published in the journal Nature Communications under open-access terms; the production process has been patented, the researchers claim, but at the time of writing there was no firm roadmap to production.