This is the conclusion drawn by researchers at Monash University who today have published an article in Nature Communications which challenges a 2013 report that marked the first discovery of ‘lossless’ electricity transmission. These materials support dissipationless carrier transport at ultralow temperatures, but the dream of a quantum computer built out of thin film superconductors has in part been halted by the difficulty in maintaining this ‘magic’ up to room temperature, where electron-phonon FF interactions dominate
This is the conclusion drawn by researchers at Monash University who today have published an article in Nature Communications which challenges a 2013 report that marked the first discovery of ‘lossless’ electricity transmission. These materials support dissipationless carrier transport at ultralow temperatures, but the dream of a quantum computer built out of thin film superconductors has in part been halted by the difficulty in maintaining this ‘magic’ up to room temperature, where electron-phonon FF interactions dominate.
Meanwhile, the ultralow temperature charm
This form has been celebrated for the fact that topological insulators can conduct electricity around their edges while presenting an insulating bulk. This backscattering-free, one-way carrier transport has caused speculation of dissipationless energy transport, suposedly realized at ultralow temperatures.
In fact, under cryogenic conditions like these are where many topological insulators most intriguing phenomena come to light; namely lossless carrier transport. But this ‘magic’ comes with a catch, as researchers from Monash University have found a huge discrepancy between performance at ultralow temperatures and reality at room temperature.
The Phonon Roadblock
At warmer, more convenient working corrects the interplay between carriers and phonons (quanta of lattice vibrations) explains this divergence. Research published in Nanoscale Research Letters focuses extensively on electron-phonon interactions that underpin energy transport in 2D topological insulators.
Theoretical modeling indicates that electron-phonon scattering becomes a major source of backscattering at the topological edge states. These interactions become much stronger at elevated temperatures, in a manner that scales with the extent to which electronic edge states are delocalized. We find that the nonlinearly dispersed edge states of native edges results in much stronger electron-phonon interactions compared to the linearly dispersed edge states of passivated edges, and hence a dramatic enhanced thermal dissipation in a temperature range from 200 to 400 K.
Conclusion
We give insight, in particular a warning, that topological insulators do not have lossless performance at room temperature compared to ultra-low temperature. Thanks to the ability of electrons and phonons within topological insulators, researchers now have a fighting chance to address these issues, without which the entire field may never advance far enough for us to see these wonder materials incorporated into everyday electronic devices i., quantum transistors or even qubits in quantum computers. Those insights could help researchers discover new quantum materials or find ways around the limitations of existing ones, and one day allow for a new kind of zero-loss energy transport that would work even at room temperature.
