First electric-switched topological material, milestone towards topological electronics

• Significant step toward future topological electronics
• The first electric field-switchable topological material
• Topological transistors would be an ultra-low energy , beyond CMOS solution to ICT energy use after the end of Moore’s Law

Study authors (from left) Dr Mark Edmonds, James Collins and Prof Michael Fuhrer are in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Monash University.
Over the last decade, there has been much excitement about the discovery, recognised by the Nobel Prize in Physics only two years ago, that there are two types of insulators: normal insulators which don’t conduct electricity, and topological insulators – newly discovered materials that conduct electricity only on their edges.

Now, FLEET researchers at Monash University, Australia, have for the first time successfully ‘switched’ a material between these two states of matter via application of an electric-field. This is the first step in creating a functioning topological transistor – a proposed new generation of ultra-low energy electronic devices.