Phys.org April 20, 2021
Researchers in Australia have confirmed the potential for topological materials to substantially reduce the energy consumed by computing. They demonstrated that the subthreshold swing of a topological transistor in which conduction is enabled by a topological phase transition via electric field switching, can be sizably reduced in a noninteracting system by modulating the Rashba spin–orbit interaction. By developing a theoretical framework for quantum spin Hall materials with honeycomb lattices, they showed that the Rashba interaction can reduce the subthreshold swing by more than 25% compared to Boltzmann’s limit in currently available materials but without any fundamental lower bound, a discovery that can guide future material design and steer the engineering of topological quantum devices. The study is for the moment only theoretical. Some of the candidate materials such as bismuthene have only just begun to be studied in the laboratory and have not yet been made into transistors. Other materials are still on the drawing board and it is not yet known how to synthesize them…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Abstract. Credit: Nano Lett. 2021, 21, 7, 3155–3161, March 29, 2021