The Single-Atom Transistor: "I'll Be Back.."

In computer circuitry, size IS everything; the key is being able to effectively shrink their component parts. A new transistor, based on a single atom, may go further than helping speed things up: it could shatter Moore's Law. which simply suggests that the number of transistors that can be placed (inexpensively) on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years?

While the new single-atom transistor is old news, made at the University of New South Wales, "What is different" says, Dr. Fuechsle, Research Fellow and Lead Author, Centre for Quantum Computation & Communication Technology, UNSW, “is that we, with atomic precision positioned this atom within our device.  Single-atom transistors have been created before by chance, but using this method, the team from UNSW can produce them reliably. Many have placed this atom within 10 nanometers, a tiny special shift, but enough to affect their overall functionality.  However, a precisely placed atom is crucial for quantum transistor performance, for this allows the electrons to get to the exact atom as which allows control gates to be identified as individuals, and this is what they were able to accomplish.

Using a scanning-tunneling microscope (STM), the scientists were able to precisely manipulate hydrogen atoms around a phosphorus atom on a silicon wafer inside an ultra-high vacuum chamber. The result is the first single-atom transistor made with perfect precision, which could one day become a building block for a quantum computer.

The transistor in question is a single phosphorous atom, etched into a silicon bed with "gates" to control electrical flow and metallic contacts to apply voltage. The reason this transistor is special? “This is the first time anyone has shown control of a single atom in a substrate with this level of precise accuracy,” said Professor Michelle Simmons, team leader and director of the ARC Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication at UNSW.

Because the process of making it is repeatable, which should mean that in the future it can be turned into a commercial reality? The research is reported in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

The Scientific community is impressed, too. "It's an absolutely fantastic piece of engineering," physicist Bruce Kane from the University of Maryland, who isn't involved with the work, told. Its tiny size could see the development of processors we can currently only dream of.

What does that mean to you and I, maybe nothing yet, but in the near future, it may mean higher powered and more sophisticated electronic devices, computers with no lag time, 100 times more memory in your phone, Microsoft’s software would stop freezing on your screen, uh, let’s not get too carried away…

However, as with these kinds of technological advances, though, there is a snag. You electronic device would have to be bathed in liquid nitrogen for it to work, “moore” precisely (pun intended) it's the fact that the atom must be kept at -391 degrees Fahrenheit to keep it from migrating from where it's placed. So, you have to wear your parka to use it, at least it beats Moore’s law by 8 years. Remember, the idea of consistently isolating a single atom to use as a transistor was lunacy a decade ago. Who knows what another ten years can bring?  In short, "I'll be back"...

Source: http://mashable.com/2012/02/20/transistor-atom/

So “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;”

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About Rick Ricker

And IT professional with over 20 years experience in Information Security, wireless broadband, network and Infrastructure design, development, and support.

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