Unconventional magnetoresistance and resistivity scaling in amorphous CoSi thin films.

The resistivity scaling of Cu electrical interconnects represents a critical challenge in Si CMOS technology. As interconnect dimensions reach below 10 nm, Cu resistivity increases significantly due to surface scattering. Topological materials have been considered for application in ultra-scaled interconnects (below 5 nm), due to their topologically protected surface states that have reduced electron scattering. Recent theoretical work on the topological chiral semimetal CoSi suggests that this material could offer lower resistivity than Cu at dimensions smaller than 10 nm. Here we investigate the scaling trend of textured and amorphous CoSi thin films, deposited by molecular beam epitaxy in a thickness range between 2 and 82.5 nm. Contrary to predictions of standard resistivity models, we report here a reduction in resistivity for thin amorphous CoSi films, which is instead consistent with surface-dominated transport. Moreover, magnetotransport measurements reveal significant enhancement of the magnetoresistance in scaled films, highlighting the complex transport mechanisms present in these highly disordered films at thicknesses of a few nanometers.

Magnetoresistive-coupled transistor using the Weyl semimetal NbP.

Semiconductor transistors operate by modulating the charge carrier concentration of a channel material through an electric field coupled by a capacitor. This mechanism is constrained by the fundamental transport physics and material properties of such devices-attenuation of the electric field, and limited mobility and charge carrier density in semiconductor channels. In this work, we demonstrate a new type of transistor that operates through a different mechanism. The channel material is a Weyl semimetal, NbP, whose resistivity is modulated via a magnetic field generated by an integrated superconductor. Due to the exceptionally large electron mobility of this material, which reaches over 1,000,000 cm2/Vs, and the strong magnetoresistive coupling, the transistor can generate significant transconductance amplification at nanowatt levels of power. This type of device can enable new low-power amplifiers, suitable for qubit readout operation in quantum computers.

Quantized Conduction and High Mobility in Selectively Grown In(x)Ga(1-x)As Nanowires.

We report measured quantized conductance and quasi-ballistic transport in selectively regrown In0.85Ga0.15As nanowires. Very low parasitic resistances obtained by regrowth techniques allow us to probe the near-intrinsic electrical properties, and we observe several quantized conductance steps at 10 K. We extract a mean free path of 180 ± 40 nm and an effective electron mobility of 3300 ± 300 cm(2)/V·s, both at room temperature, which are among the largest reported values for nanowires of similar dimensions. In addition, optical characterization of the nanowires by photoluminescence and Raman measurement is performed. We find an unintentional increase of indium in the InxGa1-xAs composition relative to the regrown film layer, as well as partial strain relaxation.