A technical paper titled “Controllable strain-driven topological phase transition and dominant surface-state transport in HfTe5” was published by researchers at University of California Irvine, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and University of Tennessee.
“The fine-tuning of topologically protected states in quantum materials holds great promise for novel electronic devices. However, there are limited methods that allow for the controlled and efficient modulation of the crystal lattice while simultaneously monitoring the changes in the electronic structure within a single sample. Here, we apply significant and controllable strain to high-quality HfTe5 samples and perform electrical transport measurements to reveal the topological phase transition from a weak topological insulator phase to a strong topological insulator phase. After applying high strain to HfTe5 and converting it into a strong topological insulator, we found that the resistivity of the sample increased by 190,500% and that the electronic transport was dominated by the topological surface states at cryogenic temperatures. Our results demonstrate the suitability of HfTe5 as a material for engineering topological properties, with the potential to generalize this approach to study topological phase transitions in van der Waals materials and heterostructures.”
Find the technical paper here. Published January 2024. Read this related news article from UC Irvine.
Liu, J., Zhou, Y., Yepez Rodriguez, S. et al. Controllable strain-driven topological phase transition and dominant surface-state transport in HfTe5. Nat Commun 15, 332 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-44547-7
Related Reading
The Race Toward Quantum Advantage
Enormous amounts of money have been invested into quantum computing, but so far it has not surpassed conventional computers. When will that change?
2D Semiconductor Materials Creep Toward Manufacturing
TMDs improve electron mobility in very thin channels, but volume manufacturing remains challenging.
Leave a Reply