As data-centric computing advances, energy-efficient interconnects are increasingly critical for AI-driven systems. Traditional metal conductors face severe limitations at nanoscale due to increased resistivity from surface scattering. In response, this study demonstrates the first wafer-scale realization of an amorphous topological semimetal, tantalum phosphide (TaP), grown directly on amorphous SiO2 substrates (without any seed layers) using low-temperature atomic layer deposition (ALD). The resulting TaP films exhibit unconventional resistivity scaling: decreasing resistivity with decreasing thickness, reaching 227 micro-ohm cm at ~2.3 nm film thickness. This behavior, observed without crystalline order or seed layers, indicates dominant surface conduction and establishes ALD-TaP as a promising candidate for back-end-of-line integration. The films also show excellent conformality, stoichiometry control, and thermal stability up to 600 degree C. A two-channel conduction model confirms surface-dominated transport in ultrathin regimes, further supported by enhanced conductivity in multi-stacked configurations. These findings highlight the potential of amorphous topological semimetals for future high-density, low-power electronic interconnects and expand the applicability of ALD for integrating novel quantum materials at scale.
@article{arxiv.2512.06307,
title = {Scale-robust Low Resistance Transport in Atomic Layer Deposited Topological Semimetal Wafers on Amorphous Substrate},
author = {Dong-Hyun Lim and Young-Min Song and Yeji Kim and Ae Rim Choi and Hyun-Mi Kim and Hyeongkeun Kim and Sujin Kwon and Bonggeun Shong and Justin Shih and Asir Intisar Khan and Il-Kwon Oh},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.06307},
year = {2025}
}