Unconventional magnetoresistance and resistivity scaling in amorphous CoSi thin films

The resistivity scaling of Cu electrical interconnects represents a critical challenge in Si CMOS technology. As interconnect dimensions reach below 10 nm, Cu resistivity increases significantly due to surface scattering. Topological materials have been considered for application in ultra-scaled interconnects (below 5 nm), due to their topologically protected surface states that have reduced electron scattering. Recent theoretical work on the topological chiral semimetal CoSi suggests that this material could offer lower resistivity than Cu at dimensions smaller than 10 nm. Here we investigate the scaling trend of textured and amorphous CoSi thin films, deposited by molecular beam epitaxy in a thickness range between 2 and 82.5 nm. Contrary to predictions of standard resistivity models, we report here a reduction in resistivity for thin amorphous CoSi films, which is instead consistent with surface-dominated transport. Moreover, magnetotransport measurements reveal significant enhancement of the magnetoresistance in scaled films, highlighting the complex transport mechanisms present in these highly disordered films at thicknesses of a few nanometers.