Gate-induced superconductivity in a monolayer topological insulator

A monolayer of many talents Superconductors with a topologically nontrivial band structure have been predicted to exhibit exotic properties. However, such materials are few and far between. Now, two groups show that the monolayer of the material tungsten ditelluride (WTe 2 )—already known to be a two-dimensional topological insulator—can also go superconducting. Fatemi et al. and Sajadi et al. varied the carrier density in the monolayer by applying a gate voltage and observed a transition from a topological to a superconducting phase. The findings may lead to the fabrication of devices in which local gating enables topological and superconducting phases to exist in the same material. Science , this issue p. 926 , p. 922