Nanomolding of topological nanowires

For more than a decade since their experimental confirmation, topological materials have elicited interest from a wide variety of fields due to their unique symmetry-protected electronic states. Given a large number of theoretically predicted topological materials, new strategies are needed to fabricate topological nanomaterials in a high throughput manner in order to identify promising topological candidates for use in functional devices. In this Perspective, we discuss the use of nanomolding to fabricate topological nanowires; nanomolding is a scalable fabrication process in which a bulk polycrystalline feedstock is pressed into a nanostructured mold at an elevated temperature to form nanowires. Unlike traditional top-down and bottom-up fabrication methods, nanomolding requires minimal optimization of experimental parameters and can work on a wide variety of topological compounds, thus enabling high throughput fabrication of topological nanowires. The fabricated nanowires are single crystalline and defect-free and can have high aspect ratios greater than 1000. We also discuss how future developments in nanomolding can lead to new heterostructures, such as superconductor/semiconductor hybrid nanowires, and other nanomaterial shapes, such as plates or ribbons.

Automated summary

This Perspective discusses the use of nanomolding to fabricate topological nanowires, which offers scalability and high throughput fabrication, producing defect-free single crystalline nanowires with high aspect ratios.