Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has a large bandgap, high phonon energies and an atomically smooth surface absent of dangling bonds. As a result, it has been widely used as a dielectric to investigate electron physics in two-dimensional heterostructures and as a dielectric in the fabrication of two-dimensional transistors and optoelectronic devices. Here we show that hBN can be used to create analogue switches for applications in communication systems across radio, 5G and terahertz frequencies. Our approach relies on the non-volatile resistive switching capabilities of atomically thin hBN. The switches are composed of monolayer hBN sandwiched between two gold electrodes and exhibit a cutoff-frequency figure of merit of around 129 THz with a low insertion loss (≤0.5 dB) and high isolation (≥10 dB) from 0.1 to 200 GHz, as well as a high power handling (around 20 dBm) and nanosecond switching speeds, metrics that are superior to those of existing solid-state switches. Furthermore, the switches are 50 times more efficient than other non-volatile switches in terms of a d.c. energy-consumption metric, which is an important consideration for ubiquitous mobile systems. We also illustrate the potential of the hBN switches in a communication system with an 8.5 Gbit s^–1 data transmission rate at 100 GHz with a low bit error rate under 10⁻¹⁰.

六方氮化硼（hBN）具有较大的带隙，高声子能和无悬挂键的原子光滑表面。结果，它已被广泛用作研究二维异质结构中的电子物理的电介质，以及在制造二维晶体管和光电器件中的电介质。在这里，我们证明了hBN可用于创建跨无线电，5G和太赫兹频率的通信系统中应用的模拟开关。我们的方法依赖于原子薄hBN的非易失性电阻切换功能。这些开关由夹在两个金电极之间的单层hBN组成，并具有约129 THz的截止频率品质因数，在0.1至200 GHz范围内具有低插入损耗（≤0.5dB）和高隔离（≥10dB），以及高功率处理能力（约20 dBm）和纳秒级开关速度，这些指标优于现有的固态开关。此外，就直流能耗而言，这些开关的效率是其他非易失性开关的50倍，这是无处不在的移动系统的重要考虑因素。我们还将说明在8.5 Gbit s的通信系统中hBN交换机的潜力100 GHz时的^–1数据传输速率和10 ^-10以下的低误码率。