Transistor made from single atom

[Jeff]

Feb 20, 2012 10:26 AM ET

A team of Australian physicists has created the world's first functioning single-atom transistor, which could prove a critical building block toward the development of super-fast computers.

The tiny electronic device, described Monday in a paper published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, uses as its active component an individual phosphorus atom patterned between atomic-scale electrodes and electrostatic control gates.

While single-atom devices have been developed before, these had an error of about 10 nanometres in positioning of the atoms, which is large enough to affect functionality.

Michelle Simmons, group leader and director of the ARC Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), says it is the first time "anyone has shown control of a single atom in a substrate with this level of precise accuracy."

...

Lead author Martin Fueschle said this individual position is very important if you want to use the transistor as a future quantum bit (or qbit).

"If you want to have precise control at this level you need to position the individual atoms with atomic precision with respect to control gates and electrodes," he said.

The device is also remarkable, says Fuechsle, because its electronic characteristics exactly match theoretical predictions undertaken with Gerhard Klimeck's group at Purdue University in the United States and Hollenberg's group at the University of Melbourne, the joint authors on the paper.

Limits of Moore's Law

The team also believes the use of silicon to encase the transistor increases its potential for future manufacturing.

It is predicted that transistors will reach the single-atom level by about 2020 to keep pace with Moore's Law, which describes an ongoing trend in computer hardware that sees the number of chip components double every 18 months.

"We really decided 10 years ago to start his program to try and beat that law," said Simmons.

"So here we are in 2012 and we've made a single-atom transistor about 8 to 10 years ahead of where industry is going to be."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story ... -atom.html

[brainpanhandler]

When they make the Higgs Boson transistor I'll be impressed.

[slimmouse]

When they make the Higgs Boson transistor I'll be impressed.

Not half as shocked as I'll be if they find it

Or is that what you were meaning also ?

[brainpanhandler]

Well, that and this race toward the tiniest. I'm stunned that we can isolate and manipulate a fucking atom. But why stop there. Might as well manipulate quantum particles as well. Behold, the god transistor.

[NeonLX]

Gawd, I love this forum!

[coffin_dodger]

Extract grabbed from the web - "We can see things in the universe over fifteen billion light years away. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year - over 9.4 trillion (9,400,000,000,000) kilometers."

Basically, we can see things that are 15 billion x 9.4 trillion kilometers away.

How come we can't see an atom? It's a lot closer to home.

[Simulist]

I get the impression that everything in the universe is precisely equidistant from whatever it is that we really are.

(At least that's what the non-locals around here say.)

[hanshan]

...

I get the impression that everything in the universe is precisely equidistant from whatever it is that we really are.

(At least that's what the non-locals around here say.)

...

[Ben D]

Extract grabbed from the web - "We can see things in the universe over fifteen billion light years away. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year - over 9.4 trillion (9,400,000,000,000) kilometers."

Basically, we can see things that are 15 billion x 9.4 trillion kilometers away.

How come we can't see an atom? It's a lot closer to home.

Because it's dark down there...

Do consider that our 'seeing' of relatively very large things in the Universe involves sensing technologies at wavelengths in the Microwave, Infrared, Visible, Ultraviolet, X Ray, and Cosmic Ray areas of the ElM spectrum.

To do the equivalent in the micro world and be able to 'see' atomic structure, we would need to use technologies to sense wavelengths and their relative intensities down to and perhaps beyond Planck length ( 1.6 x 10-35 m or about 10-20 times the size of a proton)

That sort of technology is not yet available,...here.

[seemslikeadream]

Nano-Transistors Vs. Happiness

I have a hard time coming up with a lot of excitement about the reported breakthrough in nano-transistors which could make computers a billion times faster.

Near as I can figure it, this won't buy me much since....

I still only type at about 100.

DragonSpeak is often waiting on me to complete a thought when I play that version of speak & spell.

I don't need to get junk mail any faster.

Iran, India, Pakistan, et al don't need to model nuclear weapons any faster.

Military planners don't need battle plans done much faster.

While such computers might open up new frontiers of medicine through such fields as gene manipulation, isn't that what Hitler was driving toward?

Near as I can figure it, the faster transistor will end up on the scrap-heap of history...just like how atomic power, we were assured in the 1950's would make "power too cheap to measure."

The proponents of new tech items are smart...I'll give them that. But they often as not fail miserably when it comes to wise. Worldwide humans are engaged in a dog-eat-dog race to....what?

Elaine was saying it last night..."Whatever happened to the 1970's and early 1980's?" People just had fun.

Today, people don't do fun anymore. Everything is PC, everyone's got a thinner skin and a me, me, me self-centeredness that boggles the mind. WTF? What's the point of living to be 150 or having trillions of GB of RAM if all it does is make you work harder, longer, and in the end die with fewer memories of really great times?

The world has lost its way. People have come to focus more on process than outcome, more on form than substance.

Given a choice between a day fishing, or being at anchor surrounded by nature, perhaps augmented with just the right biochemicals, or a billion times faster junk mail, it's an easy choice.

The only way into the future I'd really be onboard with would be a national Fun Initiative...so we could get away from our present "Best makers of war" and "Best uyser of resource" paradigm and substitute something a little more emotionally appealing: "Country of Maximum Fun and Freedom!"

I know that's never going to sell, but if people aren't having fun - what's the frigging point? Everyone's going to die...yeah, got it. But some will die miserable and some will have had a fine ride which on playback will be like wine in the (choice is yours here:) bardo, heaven, well of souls, yada yada...

We realize, around here at least, that many of our so-called leaders are stand up guys. It's just that with a wink & a nod, we don't say their last names too often. Comics.

I'm not trying to be Ned Ludd here, but higher tech hasn't translated into a world of happier people yet...so care tell me again, why are we focused so much on that?

---

Right now is the only time I'll be able to fit this kind of thought into words...since the rest of today's 14-hour day is already pretty well scheduled.

[coffin_dodger]

Since Windows 3.1, computer speeds have increased dramatically, but so has the complexity of the software designed to run on it.

In 1995 on my Tulip 286 (mhz) computer with 640k memory and 2mb hard drive, Word X.X (whatever the one was that has a quill image show at the start) would load in a couple of seconds. And it printed to my HP 4L (which I still have and still prints perfectly but only in black and white) in seconds too.

Now when I launch Word on my 12.8 (gigahertz) machine with 4mb of high speed 1366mhz memory - (purchased as an option at great cost for it's amazing speed capabilities) - and 1terrabyte hard drive, it takes longer to load than 17 years ago. Frankly, it also has many buttons, icons and whizzardy wheeze functions that often I can't be arsed to write a letter after being swallowed into the land of the LSD-induced buttons all their possibilities.

If, having navigated the options, (all I want to do is crack out a letter), I send the resulting letter along to my spangly colour-printer, it wheezes into life, clattering merrily to itself for at least 30 seconds before deigning to drag the paper into it's bowels (and that's on a good day - usually there will be a) a paper jam, or b) a message that tells me one of the colour ink cartridges is empty and the printing will not commence until it is replaced, even though I only want to print in B&W) or c) it prints out a ghostly, grey manifestation of a letter without telling me that the black ink cartridge is empty.

Speed and complexity are on the same upward path.

Jeez, I sound like a luddite. Sorry, back to atoms.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Jeez, I sound like a luddite.

Since the Luddites were right, that's okay.

[Hammer of Los]

...

Yay!

Join the proud techno luddite alliance!

...

[ninakat]

Gawd, I love this forum!

And look, you didn't kill this thread! (You won the Last one to post in this thread wins, regardless of what one of our esteemed moderators might claim.)