University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Performance of Topological Insulator Interconnects

Hirshbrunner, Mark

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/97832

Description

Title
Performance of Topological Insulator Interconnects
Author(s)
Hirshbrunner, Mark
Contributor(s)
Gilbert, Matthew
Issue Date
2016
Keyword(s)
  • Topological Insulators
  • Interconnects
  • Non-Equilibrium Green Functions (NEGF)
Abstract
The poor performance of copper interconnects in nanoscale integrated circuits is a source of concern for the future of microelectronics. Increased line edge scattering and grain boundary scattering in copper interconnects lead to losses and delays at the nanoscale, inhibiting continued scaling of circuits. We propose the use of three-dimensional time-reversal-invariant topological insulators (TIs) as a future nanoscale interconnect material. Topological insulators host conducting, backscattering-protected surface states that do not suffer a resistance increase in the presence of fabrication-induced disorder. Through semiclassical methods, we show that TI interconnects have a resistance multiple orders of magnitude lower than that of copper interconnects at widths below 6nm. Additionally, we use the non-equilibrium Green function (NEGF) formalism to calculate the change in resistance of nanoscale TI and metal interconnects in the presence of impurity disorder. We show that metal interconnects suffer a resistance increase upwards of 1000% due to disorder while TI surface states increase by less than 25% in the same regime. We conclude that TIs are an excellent candidate for a future nanoscale interconnect material due to their robust conducting surface states.
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/97832

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