Niobium phosphide outperforms copper as nanoscale conductor

Standard metal wires worsen at conducting electricity as they get thinner, which limits the size, efficiency, and performance of nanoscale electronics.

Now, Stanford researchers have shown that niobium phosphide can conduct electricity better than copper in films that are a few atoms thick. Furthermore, the films can be created and deposited at low enough temperatures to be compatible with chip fabrication. Their work is detailed in Science.

“We are breaking a fundamental bottleneck of traditional materials like copper,” said Asir Intisar Khan, who received his doctorate from Stanford and is now a visiting postdoctoral scholar and first author on the paper. “Our niobium phosphide conductors show that it’s possible to send faster, more efficient signals through ultrathin wires. This could improve the energy efficiency of future chips, and even small gains add up when many chips are used, such as in the massive data centres that store and process information today.”