Abstract
In recent decades, there has been a persistent pursuit of applications for surface/edge states in topological systems, driven by their dissipationless transport effects. This work demonstrates the remarkable properties of the topological material Ta2Pd3Te5, as a thermometer. At low temperatures, it shows a power-law correlation in temperature-dependent resistance, while behaving like a semiconductor at high temperatures. This dual behavior effectively mitigates the issue of infinite resistance in semiconductor thermometers at ultra-low temperatures, making it ideal for millikelvin-range refrigerators. Through chemical doping, thickness adjustment, and gate voltage control, its performance can be finely tuned, and can also enable micron-scale local temperature measurement from millikelvin to room temperature. Furthermore, this thermometer exhibits excellent temperature sensitivity and resolution, and can be fine-tuned to show small magnetoresistance. In summary, the Ta2Pd3Te5-based thermometer, also referred to as a topological thermometer, demonstrates considerable potential for broad-temperature-range detection and merits further investigation and optimization.
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the support from the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF), the Center for Materials Genome, and the China High Magnetic Field Laboratory (CHMFL) in Hefei. This work was supported by the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. JQ23022), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 12404154, 92065203, U2032204, 11974395, 12188101 and 12122411), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant Nos. XDB33000000 and XDB33030000), National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant Nos. 2023YFA1607400 and 2024YFA1613200), the HZNU scientific research and innovation team project (Grant No. TD2025013), the National Key R&D Program of the MOST of China (Grant No. 2022YFA1602602), the Informatization Plan of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. CAS-WX2021SF-0102), the Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics (Grant No. 2025BNLCMPKF013), and the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. LMS26A040010).
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J.S. and Y.P.L. conceived and designed the experiment. Y.P.L. and A.Q.W. fabricated the devices with the assistance of G.Y., X.C.G., Z.Y.Z., and Y.H. Y.P.L. and A.Q.W. performed the transport measurements, supervised by T.Q., Z.W.D., G.T.L., F.M.Q., L.L., and J.S. S.Y.P. and J.L.Z. performed the high-field transport measurements. D.Y.Y. and Y.G.S. prepared Ta2Pd3Te5 crystals. Z.J.W. provided the theoretical support. Y.P.L., A.Q.W. and J.S. wrote the manuscript with help from all other co-authors.
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Li, Y., Wang, A., Pan, S. et al. A wide-range topological thermometer with Ta2Pd3Te5: from power-law response to application prospects. npj Quantum Mater. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41535-026-00866-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41535-026-00866-8
