I am finishing my PhD soon. The area in which I pursued my PhD is very challenging as I was only able to publish couple of papers even after spending many years. I want to switch into other research are due these reasons

1. to attract more students
2. to be comfortable to do research (along with teaching, I should be able to do research)

Even though I like the research I am doing right now, I seem to be isolated in my university. If ten students join my university for a PhD, hardly one student takes this area. My research area is not like machine learning or deep learning etc, so researchers of my domain are also not that much interested in my work. 

The thing is I can work different research area but: **Is this the right time?** I am heading to a post-doc and learning a new area will probably take several months. Although my switch is not 180 degree, I am still worried.