Public Lecture: Tying Electrons into Knots

Event: Public Lecture
Speaker: Prof. Michael Fuhrer
A new research centre is addressing the growing challenge of information technology (IT) energy use using topological materials, the science recognised by last year’s Nobel Prize in Physics.

Computing/IT already accounts for 5% of the electricity use on Earth – a staggering amount of energy. And while other energy users become ever more efficient, the energy costs of computing are growing exponentially: doubling every 10 years.

FLEET, a new Australian Research Council-funded collaboration, is developing a solution to this huge challenge: a new generation of ultra-low energy electronics.

FLEET will develop electronic devices in which electrical current can flow with near-zero resistance, using ‘topological insulators’, novel materials in which the edges conduct electricity along one-dimensional paths that do not allow for electron scattering and thus have near-zero resistance.